Albert Nyfeler

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Albert Nyfeler (born September 26, 1883 in Lünisberg ; † June 14, 1969 in Burgdorf BE ) was a Swiss painter and photographer . He has made a name for himself in particular with drawings, watercolors and oil paintings of the Bernese and Valais Alps . In addition, as a collector and photographer, he comprehensively documented everyday life in the Lötschental in the first half of the 20th century .

Live and act

Albert Nyfeler came in 1883 as the youngest of ten children of the farmer and Wagner Andreas Nyfeler and Maria geb. Ellenberger to the world. He attended primary school in Lünisberg and, after finishing school, joined his brother Fritz's painting workshop in Langenthal as an apprentice . After the recruiting school, the trained painter first worked in Basel and later in Montreux and Monthey .

In 1906 he came to the Lötschental for the first time: In Kippel he worked as a decorative painter on the interior design of the church. In 1907 Friedrich Gottfried Stebler's work Am Lötschberg appeared , for which Nyfeler drew a series of vignettes . In 1908 he returned to Lötschental, rented a room and earned his living doing casual work as a painter; in addition, he created drawings and pictures that were exhibited in Langenthal and enabled him to start studying. The training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich lasted four years .

When the First World War broke out , Nyfeler returned to Switzerland and did military service. After the end of the war he bought a house in Langenthal, which he left after his mother's death in 1922 to settle in Kippel. On the edge of the village, a spacious studio house was built according to Nyfeler's plans, into which he moved in 1923. Various finds from prehistoric times, which came to light when the foundation was excavated, aroused his interest in prehistory . Throughout his life, Nyfeler collected objects that provided information about the inhabitants of the Lötschental in past centuries. His extensive collection formed the basis and most of the holdings of the Lötschental Museum, which opened in Kippel in 1982.

After marrying Lydia Röthlisberger from Ochlenberg near Herzogenbuchsee in 1925, the painter's house in Kippel became a magnet for strangers. The artist not only aroused interest in the Lötschental in the rest of Switzerland with his pictures, he also promoted tourism in the valley itself - as the first president of the tourist office founded in 1935. He helped the population in a variety of ways and promoted the culture of the Lötschental by creating backdrops for theater performances or billboards and pub signs, painting masks of the Tschäggätä or grave crosses and taking family portraits or wedding photos.

Nyfeler began taking photographs as early as 1910; In the 1920s and 1930s a large number of photos were taken that documented everyday life in the Lötschental. Today, some of the photographs, which became famous not least through the work of Maurice Chappaz about the Lötschental (1975), are in the media library of the canton of Valais in Martinach . 

Mention should be made of the friendship between Albert Nyfeler and Arnold Niederer (1914–1998): The young traveling salesman and hiking instructor gave foreign language lessons in the Lötschental in the winter of 1937/1938, in which Lydia Nyfeler also took part: one of the first encounters with the artist's family emerged lifelong friendship; For several years Niederer lived and worked as a secretary and versatile helper in the "crashed Zeppelin", as the painter's house was called by the locals.

Albert Nyfeler died in 1969. Today, the gallery and the Albert Nyfeler association are housed in his studio house, which makes the artist's estate accessible to the public with changing exhibitions. On the 50th anniversary of his death, several exhibitions and publications will be held in 2019 - in the Lötschentaler Museum in Kippel and at the Oberwallis Art Forum in Visp .

literature

  • Thomas Antonietti: Une société égalitaire? La femme dans les photographies d'Albert Nyfeler. In: Annales valaisannes 2017 , pp. 170–179.
  • Werner Bellwald: Albert Nyfeler. Painter and photographer. 1883-1969. Arlesheim 1994.
  • Sch. Fischer: The painter Albert Nyfeler. In: At the home hearth: Swiss illustrated monthly magazine , Vol. 30, 1926–1927, pp. 54–61. ( Digitized version ).
  • An artist and his valley. Albert Nyfeler 1883-1969. Lötschental Museum. Here and now, Baden 2019.
  • Arnold Niederer: Albert Nyfeler. Painter - draftsman - photographer. 1883-1968. Alpine Museum , Bern 1983.
  • Dino Rigoli: The sound of color. An attempt to approach the painterly work of Albert Nyfeler. In: Kunstforum Oberwallis (Ed.): Albert Nyfeler. Catalog for the exhibition by Albert Nyfeler (1883–1969). Visp 2018.
  • Adele Tatarinoff-Eggenschwiler: Albert Nyfeler. The mountain painter in Lötschental on his seventieth birthday on September 26, 1953 . Union printing house, Solothurn 1953.
  • Franziska Werlen: Art-historical classification of the painter and photographer Albert Nyfeler (1883–1969). In: Geschichtsforschender Verein Oberwallis (Hrsg.): Leaves from the Valais history . Vol. XLII, Visp 2010.
  • Franziska Werlen: The pictorial work of Albert Nyfeler (1883–1969). Kippel 2017.
  • Rea Wüthrich-Nyfeler (Ed.): Albert Nyfeler. Painter and photographer. 1883-1969. Bloch printing works, Arlesheim 1994.
  • Albert Nyfeler . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 3 : K-P . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1956, p. 498 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matriculation 4008, entry: May 8, 1911 Matriculation database of the AdBK Munich
  2. ↑ photography. Albert Nyfeler in his studio in 1943. In: Die Berner Woche , vol. 33, 1943, p. 1109.
personal data
SURNAME Nyfeler, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter and photographer
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Lünisberg
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1969
Place of death Burgdorf BE