Johann Robert Schürch

Johann Robert Schürch

Johannes (Johann) Robert Schürch (born November 18, 1895 in Aarau , † May 14, 1941 in Ascona ) was a Swiss draftsman , painter and graphic artist .

Life

Robert Schürch (he later gave himself his middle name) was born in Aarau in 1895; his father runs a printing company, his mother is a teacher. In 1907 both his father and his two sisters die. Schürch now lives with his mother in Aarau, Zurich , where he is trained as an advertising painter. In 1916 they both move to Geneva. Schürch attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and became Ferdinand Hodler's studio assistant . Hodler dies in 1918 and Schürch paints him on his death bed.

The draftsman and painter Johann Robert Schürch lived and worked in Monti ob Locarno from 1922 to 1932, and from 1934 in Ascona. Despite material poverty and little external success as an artist, these ten years or so are the most decisive for his life's work. During this time Schürch found and developed his personal artistic expression, his own visual language. After making friends with various women, Schürch met Erica Leutwyler, 20 years his junior, who became his partner.

In 1939 Schürch's mother died in Monti; he is called up for border service. In 1940 he fell ill with open tuberculosis. Johann Robert Schürch died on May 14, 1941 in Ascona.

plant

Large self-portrait, 1930

The creative influence of his master Ferdinand Hodler can be found in the early works, but hardly in his choice of motifs: in Geneva, Florence and Milan he primarily processed observed and conceived scenes from the areas of life of simple, often socially marginalized people that were too existential for him Situations, to primary perceptions, instincts, feelings and also to traditions, seemed to have an undisguised relationship to the norms of civilization. He does not necessarily focus on the socially critical approach, rather a self-evident, in the best sense of the word solidarity, relationship to everything that is more original. The artistic processing was then aimed at conveying, differentiating, deepening and refining this statement. He himself notes: “… The grotesque and satirical also attracts me colossally, it is a power, a force that I can hardly explain; I think it is an abundance of forms, piling up everything that is somehow possible ... Aesthetically beautiful is a term we have created that has nothing to do with beauty ... You have to speak through color and shape, but the shape mustn't to be empty form… ”(in a letter to his patron Sponagel).

In the purely landscape motifs, Schürch refers visibly more directly to nature that has grown; in the natural he hoped to be able to satisfy his longing for a unity of all existence. But even in the landscape, observations are seldom portrayed naturalistically, but mostly as pictorial elements in invented dynamic, generous, but clearly structured compositions. In the spontaneous notations of his inner pictures, the virtuoso variation of the approaching motif delimitation on the one hand and, on the other hand, the highly sensitive, suggestively circumscribing and only gently modeling lines on the other. The appearance of the picture themes is indicated by infinite lines and spaces, the superimposition of the motifs from different worlds of perception - observation, memory, imagination and dream - merge. The wash of many drawings, in gray or reserved expressionistically tinted colors, also reinforces the impression of the visionary; they subordinate and accentuate at the same time. His life's work consists of a few oil paintings and a myriad of drawings.

Schürch's estate is managed by the Erica Ebinger-Leutwyler Foundation, which sees itself as a competence center for the artist.

reception

In Swiss art history, Schürch usually appears alongside his neighbors and friends Fritz Pauli and Ignaz Epper as one of the most important Expressionists; Above all, however, his spontaneous, often washed drawings point to a different, more surrealistic world of experience.

literature

• Peter F. Atlhaus: Johann Robert Schürch In: Architektur und Kunst , Vol. 53, Issue 9, 1966, pp. 1–6; the same: Johannes Robert Schürch. Limmat Verlag, Zurich 1991; the same: JR Schürch. Edizioni Galleria Matasci Tenero, Tipografia Poncioni SA, Losone 1992.
• Tapan Bhattacharya: Johann (es) Robert Schürch. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . August 22, 2011 , accessed March 19, 2020 .
• Erica Ebinger-Leutwyler (Ed.): Johannes Robert Schürch: Aquarelle / Gouachen. Lucerne 2008, ISBN 978-3-906365-45-9 ; the same (ed.): Drawings / Johannes Robert Schürch. Text sketch by Dieter Roth , Lucerne 2001, ISBN 3-9522238-0-8 .
• Claudio Guarda: Johannes Robert Schürch. Edizioni Matasci, Tenero 2004.
• Obituary for Johann Robert Schürch In: Architektur und Kunst , Vol. 28, 1941, pp. 147–148.
• Johann Robert Schürch. With an introduction by Kurt Sponagel. Gutenberg Book Guild, Zurich 1944.
• Johann Robert Schürch: Nel Föhn della quotidianità. Nuova Prearo Editore, Milano 1987.
• Johannes Robert Schürch: Tambour Macabre. Drawings. Limmat Verlag, Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-85791-164-6 .
• Johannes Robert Schürch: 1895–1941 , ed. v. Peter F. Althaus. Trad. dal inglese: Maria Magrini. Milan 1991.
• Kurt Sponagel: Johann Robert Schürch as an etcher In: Architektur und Kunst , Vol. 40, Issue 9, 1953, pp. 301–304.

Web links

Commons : Johann Robert Schürch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Estate from and competence center for Johann Robert Schürch: Erica Ebinger-Leutwyler Foundation
• Franz Müller: Schürch, Johannes (Johann) Robert. In: Sikart