Josef Bücheler, born in 1936 in Wiesbaden, lives and works in Rottweil-Hausen. After apprenticeships as an interior decorator, upholsterer and glass painter, he spent a few years as a novice in the Benedictine abbey of St. Matthias in Trier before moving to Rottweil on the Neckar in 1965. He embarked on his career as an artist in the 1960s, initially working with polyester before turning his attention to works in stretched fabric and later to objects made of willow switches, paper and rope.

Bücheler has been working with these simple materials for several decades, often combining them with earth, graphite, mud and ash. Among the many inspirations he cites for his art are the years he spent working for a development aid project in Bangladesh.

Josef Bücheler came to wider attention with his paper installations in living trees. He glued colourful paper wings to the branches, leaving them exposed to the weather. In Baden-Württemberg he is not only known as an artist but also as a great facilitator and mediator. In 1993 he initiated the ‘Marchtaler Fenster', a platform for contemporary sculpture in the monastery of Obermarchtal, which he curated until 2008. Similarly, he was one of the key instigators of the ‘Kunstdünger' project, an installation of sculptures in a field in Rottweil-Hausen. Among the many awards Büchler has won are the Erich Heckel Prize of the Künstlerbund Baden-Württemberg (Baden-Württemberg Artists' Association) in 1996 and the Jury Prize of the Donaueschingen Regionale in 2011. Josef Bücheler's works on and in paper are on show in the Reading Room and in the Technical Museum of the Biedermann Museum until June 2013.