Cuno Amiet

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Wall decoration in sgraffito by Cuno Amiet, Kunstmuseum Bern , facade detail of the new building from 1932 to 1936

Cuno Peter Amiet (born March 28, 1868 in Solothurn ; † July 6, 1961 in Oschwand , municipality of Seeberg BE ) was a Swiss painter , draftsman, graphic artist and sculptor who joined the Dresden artist group Brücke . He is often referred to as " Bonnard the Swiss". He was influenced by the painters of post-impressionism , including Paul Gauguin , Émile Bernard and Paul Sérusier , but also by Ferdinand Hodler and Giovanni Segantini .

Life

family

Cuno Amiet was a son of Josef Ignaz Amiet (1827–1895), state clerk and state archivist of Solothurn. He had two older siblings, sister Rosa (1858-1936) and brother Caesar (1861-1935). After the mother's early death, the father married Emilie Bär von Rifferswil am Albis in 1873.

In 1882 Amiet took drawing lessons from Heinrich Jenny . In the summer of 1884 he met the painter Frank Buchser , a friend of his father's, who, after some hesitation, gave in to his son's wish to become a painter. In the fall of 1886 he traveled to Munich with the watercolorist Paul Demme (1866–1953) to study at the Academy of Fine Arts . His teachers included Caspar Ritter , Gabriel von Hackl , Karl Raupp and Nikolaus Gysis .

Academy time

At the age of 20, Amiet moved to Munich , which at that time was one of the two largest painting schools alongside Paris . In 1887 he met the Swiss painter Giovanni Giacometti of the same age , with whom he was to become a lifelong friend. He became the godfather of his eldest son Alberto Giacometti . Amiet also maintained contact with Sigismund Righini .

In Munich they belonged to the Swiss circle around Franz Baur , Max Buri , Wilhelm Balmer , Emil Dill , Jakob Probst , Walter Mettler , Charles Welti . Cuno Amiet and Giovanni Giacometti decided to continue their training in Paris at the Académie Julian at the side of Pierre Bonnard , Édouard Vuillard , Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier , where they arrived in October 1888. Amiet's Paris teachers included Tony Robert-Fleury . Together with Félix Vallotton , he joined a symbolist group of artists called the Nabis (in Hebrew, “the chosen”). Amiet's family had little money and the father made great sacrifices to enable his son to stay in Brittany . His brother-in-law Theodor Flury from Olten also supported Amiet.

Pont-Aven

In May 1892 Amiet traveled to Pont-Aven , a fishing village in Brittany that had become a magnet for young artists through Paul Gauguin's stay, where he stayed until June 1893. There he came into contact with works by Gauguin, who had already set out on his first trip to Tahiti . To his friends, the painter Paul Sérusier and included Roderic O'Conor from Ireland , the Amiet in the art of Van Gogh, the divisionism of Seurat and the use of pure colors introduced.

In 1893 he had the first encounter with Ferdinand Hodler , whom he then visited in his studio in Bern and from whose symbolist painting he was influenced. In the same year, Amiet joined the Bern section of the GSMBA . Amiet's father died in 1895. In 1896, during a summer stay with Giacometti in Stampa, he met the painter Giovanni Segantini , whose divisionism had influenced him alongside post-impressionism since 1893. In 1898 an exhibition with Giacometti and Hodler took place in the Künstlerhaus in Zurich .

In 1904 Amiet and Hodler were again involved in the Vienna Secession . In 1905 an exhibition took place in the Richter Gallery in Dresden . It was a failure, but through it he came into contact with the later members of the expressionist artists' association " Die Brücke ".

Connection to the artists of the "Brücke"

Some young painters in Germany found Amiet's works related to their own work: With words of appreciation, Erich Heckel therefore urged him to join the group of artists founded shortly before by Fritz Bleyl , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and him in Dresden: «Mit We saw your works with admiration and enthusiasm, and we take the liberty of asking you if you would like to join our group ‹Brücke›. We have unanimously recognized you as one of the “ours” and hope that you will support our cause as an effort towards the same artistic goals ”. Amiet agreed. It is characteristic of Amiet's unique position that he was a member of both Gauguin's circle in Pont-Aven and of the "Brücke", the first group association of German Expressionism .

marriage

On June 16, 1898, he married the landlord's daughter Anna Luder from Hellsau . His sister Rosa and Giacometti were groomsmen. In the same year Amiet moved with his wife to the Oschwand, where he had an Art Nouveau house built by the architect Otto Ingold in 1908. In 1912 he also acquired the adjacent farmhouse and converted it into his studio house. The couple had a daughter who, however, died early of a febrile illness. However, Amiet raised other children with his wife. Among other things, Greti, the niece of Amiet's wife, lived with them for years or, in 1920, Bruno Hesse , the eldest of the three sons of the poet and writer Hermann Hesse , after he separated from his first wife Maria Bernoulli and the sons did not do so for health reasons could pull up. 1919 he was the philosophical-historical faculty of the University of Bern , the honorary doctorate awarded.

Last third of life

In 1929 Amiet represented Switzerland at the 28th International Art Show in Pittsburgh with five works. When in the summer of 1931, when the Munich Glass Palace burned, fifty paintings by Amiet, especially a large number of his early works, were destroyed in flames - a catastrophe of such magnitude as it had never struck an artist in a similar way - the master of Not discouraged by this stroke of fate, but only strengthened in the resolve to make up for the loss with new creations. In 1944 he became an honorary member of the Solothurn Art Association. In 1948 Amiet received the honorary citizenship of Herzogenbuchsee and in 1950 he was made an honorary member of the GSMBA, Berne section.

Anna Amiet died in 1953. The adopted daughter Lydia Thalmann, herself a widow, returned to look after her father for the next few years. Amiet is one of those artists who remained creative and active into old age. In 1958 Amiet received the Art Prize of the Canton of Solothurn and on his 90th birthday he was celebrated with an exhibition in the Wolfsberg art salon in Zurich and a comprehensive retrospective in the Kunsthalle Bern . The last major retrospective during Amiet's lifetime opened in the Kunsthalle Basel in mid-October 1960.

On July 6, 1961, Cuno Amiet died in his house on the Oschwand. Otto Charles Bänninger designed the tomb in the cemetery .

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1959: From Hodler to Klee: Swiss Art of the Twentieth Century. Tate Gallery , London.
  • 2000: L'Art en Suisse 1910-1920. Rath Museum , Geneva.
  • 2011/2012: Amiet. «Joy of my life». Eduard Gerber Collection. Art Museum Bern .
  • 2011/2012: Ferdinand Hodler and Cuno Amiet. An artist friendship between Art Nouveau and Modernism. Solothurn Art Museum .
  • 2012: Ferdinand Hodler and Cuno Amiet. An artist friendship between Art Nouveau and Modernism , Bucerius Kunst Forum , Hamburg .
  • 2018: Bromer Art in Roggwil: Cuno Amiet, retrospective for the 150th birthday, masterpieces from eight decades

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matriculation books of the Academy of Fine Arts Munich: Cuno Amiet, pre-school, October 18, 1886. Retrieved June 29, 2019 .
  2. ^ Theodor Flury: Friendship with Cuno Amiet In: Oltner Neujahrsblätter , Vol. 41, 1983, pp. 16-18.
  3. ↑ Description of the exhibition at SIKART.
  4. ↑ 1915, painting, Greti at the table
  5. ↑ Gerd Presler: Die Brücke , Rowohlt, Reinbek 2007, p. 27.
  6. ^ Swiss Art: 1929, Amiet in Pittsburgh. Retrieved December 6, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Pro Helvetia; Arts Council of Great Britain: From Hodler to Klee: Swiss Art of the Twentieth Century. London, Tate Gallery, October 1959: an Exhibition . Tate Gallery, London 1959.
  8. ↑ George Mauner; Therese Bhattacharya-Stettler: Cuno Amiet: de Pont-Aven à "the bridge" . Ed .: Claude Ritschard. Musée d'art et d'histoire , Geneva 2000, ISBN 2-8306-0185-8 (French).
  9. ^ Eveline Kobler: About the exhibition Amiet. “Joy of my life”, Eduard Gerber Collection. 2011/2012 at the Kunstmuseum Bern at swiss.info.ch

literature

Web links

Commons : Cuno Amiet  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Amiet, Cuno
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Amiet, Cuno Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter, draftsman, graphic artist and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Solothurn
DATE OF DEATH July 6, 1961
Place of death Oschwand near Herzogenbuchsee