Constantin Polastri

Constantin Polastri (born July 26, 1933 in Dürnten ; † November 17, 2009 in Männedorf ), born as Konstantin Josef Pollastri, was a Swiss painter . He lived in Hombrechtikon (ZH) and Sanremo , Italy . His work includes oil paintings on canvas and wood, watercolors , drawings , lithographs and decorative work on furniture and walls. Influenced by post-impressionism and fauvism, he painted gardens, landscapes, still lifes and nudes.

Life

Constantin Polastri was born into a working-class family as the third of five children. As a child of the pre-war generation, he experienced poverty and poor living conditions. Polastri's mother, Maria Ida Eicher, a Toggenburg native, worked in a factory and collected herbs for Pastor Johann Künzle . Grandfather Luigi Pollastri was a ceramic painter from Italy , father Ernesto Stefano, was an electrician and came to Switzerland after completing school in Cremona. When Constantin Polastri was six years old, his father was detained for a serious offense. After the family moved to Uster , Polastri often passed the time fishing at Greifensee :
« One day I met a man there while he was painting a picture. I watched him. I was deeply impressed by the way the painter managed to conjure up a picture on the wall with brushes and paints. On the way home I developed the desire to become a painter. »

With the death of his father, the family fell victim to compulsory welfare measures by the federal government. The mother's children were taken away and «Seppli» was deported as a contract child to a farming family in the Emmental . Violence and abuse were the order of the day. The neighbors became aware of the grievances and reported the case to a children's aid organization in Solothurn. Fritz Spieler of the “ Seraphisches Liebeswerk ”, one of his later patrons, bought Polastri free in 1946 and placed him with a foster family in the Zurich Oberland .

From 1949 to 1953 Polastri completed an apprenticeship as a flat and decoration painter in Solothurn and learned the craft of restoration. He also attended evening classes at the Basel School of Applied Arts . After completing his apprenticeship, he moved to Rapperswil and also worked for his friend Karl Villinger, a silversmith and painter. In 1955 he introduced him to the painter Albert Pfister , who taught him until 1960.

In 1958 Polastri found a studio on the Frohberg, where he lived and painted. In the same year he was co-initiator of the «Galerie 58» founded by the architect Kurt Federer in Rapperswil. His first solo exhibition at the opening of “ Galerie 58 ” met with a great response. Numerous exhibitions at home and abroad followed. After a trip to Capri, he took a longer trip to Lipari , where he came into contact with the painter Max Gubler . Looking for light and inspiration, Polastri drove a year later in his Chevrolet with an easel in the trunk of Morocco . In Marrakech he lived in a small house in Jacques Majorelle's park . As with many other artists, Polastri's early life was marked by hunger and poverty. He was dependent on sponsors, who provided him with clothes, change and exhibition dates. In 1960/61 Constantin Polastri was awarded prizes from the Glyere and Pro Arte foundations, and the federal government bought some of his works.

In the seventies, Polastri married Hildegard Domeisen and took up residence in Hombrechtikon . In 1972 the couple bought a derelict property in Sanremo , Italy.

Since the sale of the pictures was still volatile, the couple lived from trading in engravings. The couple used the antiques they bought in Italy to furnish houses in Switzerland. With manual skills and in exchange for holidays or painting lessons, friends helped to convert the former chicken farm and plantation into the Villa d'Artisti. In 1975 Polastri had a daughter and in 1977 a son. In 1983 the marriage was divorced. Contrary to what he expected, this event did not change his style of painting.

Polastri was a humble person, a passionate gardener, cook and craftsman. He painted and worked until the end of his life and died on November 17th, 2009 at the age of 76 in Männedorf.

plant

Polastri acquired a solid foundation in the painting trade during his apprenticeship as a decorative painter. His Italian teacher was trained at the Accademia di Brera . He often went to Italy with him to paint and to study art in museums. At the Kunstgewerbeschule Basel , Polastri came into contact with Hans Stocker and his brother “ Coghuf ”. « I dream of an art of balance, purity and calm. Without any problems, without any disturbing subject that gives the intellectual worker, both the businessman and, for example, the writer, mental calming, smoothing his soul, giving him a break from the troubles of the day and his work. »Said Matisse after the scandal exhibition of the autumn salon of 1905.

Polastri described himself as a "painter of the French school". His admiration was particularly the painters of the Fauves . The Erlenbach painter Albert Pfister was also influenced by the Fauves . Pfister lived in Paris in his early years and had connections with the French avant-garde. He traveled to Tunisia as early as 1912 and continued to develop the Fauves' technique and theory. Pfister compared brushstrokes with the «bowed strokes of a string player. They make the color tones sound rhythmically ». "He asked for the paint to be silky smooth." Karl Villinger , a painter friend of Polastri and Pfister, criticized Polastri in 1955 for “too precise” painting. He introduced him to Pfister, who taught him until 1960.

Although influenced by Pfister, Polastri went his own way. After an initially clayey, pastel phase, Polastri's color palette was particularly influenced by his travels in North Africa. The strong light and color impressions were followed by pictures in bright colors. The pictures of the trips were then shown in exhibitions in the “Galleria Santo Stefano” in Venice , in the “ Salon d'hiver ” in Paris and in the “ Galerie des Amis des Art ” in Neuchâtel and the Rotapfel gallery in Zurich. Between 1957 and 1972 further trips were made: Spain , again Morocco, Paris, the Middle East, Turkey , England, several times Lebanon and regularly Italy. Anton Kurzi described Polastri as a «lyrical colourist». Polastri thought in colors. In the composition, petty and complaining things were left out - negatives even ignored. In the modest variety of his subjects, he repeatedly saw new compositions of light, color and form. It was precisely the lack of an intellectual or psychological explanation that made Polastri's pictures accessible to a wide audience.

“ I paint happy, colorful pictures because as a thoughtful, often melancholy, sometimes uptight person, I feel the longing for this happiness. With me it is like with many other people; my childhood shaped me a lot. »

In the Villa d'Artisti, his house on the Italian Riviera, Pollastri worked hard to create a paradise. While working in the garden, he dealt with new color compositions. That is why he kept rebuilding his gardens. Following his gardening work, he devoted himself to the painting process, in which he was inspired by nature, but strictly subordinated objects to color and translated them into points, lines or surfaces. The painting followed a rhythm. He applied the paint weightlessly, drew bold strokes, objects were left out or added. The juxtaposition of pure colors and a harmonious sound of mixed tones combined optically from a distance. At a certain point, however, the painter let himself be guided by his intuition and often finished painting the picture in his studio. But not only harmony was important to him, but also retreat. This does not just mean personal retreat, but also ending a picture. If the painter was drawn too strongly under the emotional spell of color, he could destroy a picture. It took some kind of discipline and selflessness to finish a picture. Under this aspect, the artist community around Pfister and Villinger experimented intensively. It was analyzed, criticized, people painted each other's pictures or finished them off. The artist as an individual was irrelevant. Polastri was himself the toughest critic. No matter how long he had been working on a picture, he didn't like it, he scratched it off and used it as a surface for a new one.
Polastri exhibited regularly in numerous galleries at home and abroad. In 1984 Vontobel Verlag published the first monograph. In 2003 the second monograph was published by AS Verlag , Zurich .

literature

Publications

• Constantin Polastri: MT Rüegg; Anton Kurzi, Diana Pollastri, Hildegard Domeisen, Martin Eggenschwiler, 2003
• Polastri / Ambroschütz: Anton Kurzi, 1995
• Constantin Polastri: A monograph: Viola Römer, 1984
• 5 artists from the Linth area, patronage: Department of the Interior of the Canton of St. Gallen, 1981
• TV report, "Antenne", Peter Züllig, SRF, 1968
• Radio report on the solo exhibition Galleria Santo Stefano, Venice radio station, 1968

reference books

• Biographical lexicon of Swiss art. Dictionnaire biographique de l'art suisse. Dizionario biografico dell'arte svizzera, 1998
• Artist directory in Switzerland. Including the Principality of Liechtenstein. Répertoire des artistes suisses, la Principauté du Liechtenstein incluse. Dizionario degli artisti svizzeri, incluso il Principato di Liechtenstein. 1980-1990, 1991
• Lexicon of contemporary Swiss artists. Dictionnaire des artistes suisses contemporains. Catalogo degli artisti svizzeri contemporanei, 1981
• Artist Lexicon of Switzerland. XX. Century, 1958

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Matisse, Color and Parable. Collected Writings. Zurich 1955
2. ^ Albert Pfister, 1976, Vontobel-Druck AG, Feldmeilen
3. ^ Anton Kurzi; Constantin Polastri, 1984, Vontobel-Druck AG, Feldmeilen
4. ^ Albert Pfister, 1976, Vontobel-Druck AG, Feldmeilen