Daniel Elias Kaufmann was born in Switzerland to a Swiss father and a Lebanese-Egyptian mother. A physician-scientist and sculptor, he currently lives near Lausanne, Switzerland, where he returned in 2022 after spending 21 years in North America—first in Boston, USA, and then in Montreal, Canada.
Daniel Kaufmann trained in classical sculpture techniques in Lausanne with the Hungarian sculptor and painter Andréas Dobay. While in the United States, he studied bronze and aluminum casting with David Phillips, and direct metal work in steel with Reid Drum at the MassArt School in Boston. He subsequently learned several stone-carving techniques at the Carving Studio in Vermont, studying with Nora Valdez, Gary Smith, Frank Anjo, and Rick Rothrock. He currently works mostly in marble and granite.
While Kaufmann’s recent sculptures are abstract, they frequently evoke figurative elements such as birds, wings, sails, or the human body. Their slender stone forms often push the material close to its limits and suggest connections between the mineral and spiritual worlds. More recently, he has been experimenting with different types of hardwood, including ipe, maple, cedar, and oak.
This website primarily presents his work from the past ten years. One section, entitled “Over the Years”, reflects on the shifting identity of being and on recurring themes dear to the artist.