Otto Hans Abt (June 9, 1903 in Binningen October 1, 1982 in Basel) was a Swiss painter. Otto Abt was born in 1903 in Binningen in the Canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland. The son of a doctor, he studied medicine at the University of Basel but broke off his study after two years and focused on his training as a painter at the trade school in Basel. There he came to know the painter Walter Kurt Wiemken and Walter Bodmer, with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. There followed, starting in 1927, a series of trips to Spain and southern France among other places as well as studying abroad in Paris, where he came into contact with Parisian avante-garde painting. Through an examination of the works of Matisse, Picasso, and Dalí as well as his friendship with surrealist painter Serge Brignoni, he developed his own surrealist-influenced painting style.