Camille Graeser

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Camille Louis Graeser (born February 27, 1892 in Carouge , Canton Geneva ; † February 21, 1980 in Wald ZH ) was a Swiss painter , interior architect , designer , graphic artist and representative of the Zurich School of Concrete .

Life

Camille Graeser grew up in Stuttgart . He completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter and studied furniture construction and interior design with Bernhard Pankok at the Royal School of Applied Arts there . In 1915 he worked as a furniture draftsman in Berlin, where he met Herwarth Walden from the Der Sturm gallery . In 1917 he opened his own studio for interior design and advertising graphics in Stuttgart and took painting lessons from Adolf Hölzel .

In Stuttgart, Graeser worked primarily as an interior designer and designer of everyday objects. In 1918 he was able to present his works for the first time in a solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus Schaller in Stuttgart. He was also accepted into the German Werkbund in 1918 and participated in its exhibitions. For example, he contributed exhibits to the groundbreaking exhibition Die Form ohne Ornament (1924). In 1927 Graeser furnished a model apartment in a block of flats designed by Mies van der Rohe in the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart as part of the exhibition Die Wohnung .

In 1933 Graeser fled to Zurich. In Switzerland it was initially difficult for him to gain a foothold professionally. He married Emmy Rauch , who supported the unemployed financially. In Switzerland, Graeser concentrated on painting. His artistic activity began in 1937 when he joined the artist group allianz . From the following year he took part in almost all allianz exhibitions, and from 1947 also abroad.

The State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart appointed Camille Graeser an honorary member on February 8, 1977 on the occasion of his 85th birthday, whereby "not only the close relationships of the painter and graphic artist to Stuttgart art life, but also his outstanding contribution to concrete art are recognized" should.

He found his final resting place in the Nordheim cemetery in Zurich . His tomb was lifted.

To manage his estate, his widow set up the Camille Graeser Foundation, which is still dedicated to his artistic work today.

plant

Artistic work

As an artist, Graeser developed an abstract expressionism around 1920 under the influence of his teacher Adolf Hölzel . He later switched to a strict, two-dimensional purism , which was influenced by his Stuttgart colleagues Oskar Schlemmer and Willi Baumeister . As an interior designer in 1927 he was the leading representative of New Building and New Living in southern Germany.

Graeser was the oldest and the most humble artist in the Zurich Concrete group . When he commented on his work, he did so in a poetic way. In 1943 he switched to a strictly constructive design. In an explanation of the terms abstract and concrete published in 1944, he said that not only purity, law and order are concrete , it also means the visibly designed painterly sound, similar to music .

Interior design articles

  • Furniture and Time Need. In: interior decoration. My home, my pride; the entire art of living in pictures and words. Volume 35, Stuttgart 1924, p. 326f.
  • Woman's rest room. In: interior decoration. My home, my pride; the entire art of living in pictures and words. Volume 41, Stuttgart 1930, pp. 324-324.

Exhibitions

Awards

  • 1972: Honorary gift from the cultural credit of the Canton of Zurich
  • 1975: Art Prize of the City of Zurich
  • 1977: Appointment as honorary member of the State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart

Literature (selection)

  • Hans Curjel : Camille Graser. In: Das Werk , Vol. 48, H. 2, 1961, pp. 68–72 ( pdf ).
  • Eugen Gomringer : Camille Graeser, Teufen: Niggli 1968.
  • Willy Rotzler : Camille Graeser , Zürch 1979.
  • Rudolf Koella: Camille Graeser, Zurich: Offizin Verlag 1992, ISBN 9783907495346 .
  • Exhibition catalog: Camille Graeser. Design. Wienand, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-87909-789-5 .
  • Exhibition catalog: Camille Graeser, from draft to image. Idea sketches and draft drawings 1938–1978. Wienand, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-87909-975-7 .
  • Vera Hausdorff / Roman Kurzmeyer (eds.): Camille Graeser. On becoming a concrete artist , Cologne: Wienand 2020, ISBN 978-3-86832-528-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Graeser, Camille Louis - SIKART Lexicon on Art in Switzerland. Retrieved March 12, 2019 .
  2. ^ Graeser, Camille Louis - SIKART Lexicon on Art in Switzerland. Retrieved March 12, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Hans Curjel: Camille Graeser. In: Das Werk: Architektur und Kunst (Volume 48). 1961, Retrieved March 12, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Jonathan Fisch: 122 years ago today: Birth of the artist Camille Graeser. Swiss Radio and Television SRF, February 27, 2014, accessed on March 12, 2019 (Swiss Standard German).
  5. ^ Akademie-Mitteilungen 8 : for the period from June 1, 1976 to October 31, 1977; March 1978. Edited by Wolfgang Kermer . Stuttgart: State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart, 1978, p. 154.
  6. ↑ Jonathan Fisch: 122 years ago today: Birth of the artist Camille Graeser. Swiss Radio and Television SRF, February 27, 2014, accessed on March 12, 2019 (Swiss Standard German).
  7. ↑ Camille Graeser and the music. In: Aargauer Kunsthaus . January 30, 2016, accessed August 2, 2018 .
  8. ^ Art music by Camille Graeser in the Aargauer Kunsthaus in Aarau. In: Blick.ch. Retrieved August 2, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Exhibition website accessed on November 14, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Graeser, Camille
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Graeser, Camille Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss artist
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Carouge
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1980
Place of death Forest ZH