1952, June 19
Born in the Swiss village of Trogen, in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden.

1960
Moves with his family to the Rhine Valley, to the industrial textile village of Balgach.

1968
After secondary school, begins an apprenticeship as a compositor-typographer.

1972, April 16
His “day of liberation”: earns his typographer’s diploma and sets off the very next day on his motorbike to Bern. There, he reunites with his beloved Esther Rüdlinger (b. 1953), an apprentice ceramist in the studio of artist Margrit Linck, and joins three musician friends—among them drummer Töbi Tobler—who invite him to share a house in Stuckishaus, just north of the Swiss capital.

1972
Acquires his first double bass.

1973–1979
Works as the personal assistant to Bernese painter and draftsman Rudolf Mumprecht (1918–2019), who introduces him to art history and the Swiss contemporary art scene.

1974
Begins drawing together with artist Esther Rüdlinger at their round kitchen table during their many unforgettable “drawing and smoking evenings.”

1976
Starts playing double bass at parties and festivals alongside Parisian poet and singer Guy Magey.
Moves into a former print shop and paper mill on the village square of Kirchlindach.
Meets neighboring farmers Rak Lehmann and Therese Hächler—an encounter that leads to deep artistic and emotional affinities, soon forming a bond between four true soulmates.

c. 1980
Creates his first embroideries using an Adler embroidery machine.

1981
Ficht and Töbi found Appenzeller Space Schöttl, their genre-defying folk-experimental improvisation band.

1982–1999
The band performs between 100 and 200 concerts per year across Switzerland, Germany, and Austria—ranging from major festival stages to village festivals and weddings.

1984
Moves into the eastern half of the Honnerlagscher Doppelpalast, an 18th-century mansion just below the village of Trogen. For Ficht, this long-hoped-for return to his birthplace marks a luminous reconnection with the roots of his being.

2008
Ficht acquires hundreds of new cotton threads and his current Bernina embroidery machine when a century-old embroidery company near Lake Constance closes down. This new palette of threads becomes his “brand new rainbow.”
He begins embroidering daily, intensely, from 7 a.m. until dusk.

2010
A detail from one of Ficht’s 2007 embroideries (featured on the cover of the current catalogue) is reproduced in 2,000 copies on the industrial machines of the haute couture embroidery company Rüdlinger-Berger AG in Balgach, his wife's family business. The work is printed for the cultural magazine Obacht Kultur, published in Appenzell.

2012
A retrospective is held to celebrate the artist’s 60th birthday at the Open Art Museum in St. Gallen (formerly Museum im Lagerhaus), accompanied by a catalogue publication.

Release of the cinema documentary Ficht Tanner’s Embroidered Universe (Ficht Tanners Gesticktes Universum) by filmmaker Heinz Erismann.

2019
Ficht’s embroideries are featured in the group textile exhibition Die Fäden in der Hand (“Threads in Hand”), held at akku Kunstplattform in Emmen, canton of Lucerne.

2021
Another major retrospective is organized at the Museum für Lebensgeschichten in Speicher, with the publication of a new exhibition catalogue.

2025
International exhibition in France, and publication of his first monographic catalogue in French: The show opens with a retrospective Ficht Tanner: les Jeux de rêves (“Ficht Tanner: The Games of Dreams”)at the Musée de Saint-Cirq-Lapopie – Centre International du Surréalisme Maison André Breton (April 5 – August 31, 2025), then travels to the group textile exhibition L’Etoffe des rêves, aux frontières du surréalisme et de l’art brut: la création textile (“The Fabric of Dreams – On the Borders of Surrealism and Art Brut: Textile Creation”) in Paris at the Halle Saint-Pierre (September 11, 2025 – June 2026).