Karl Gerber

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Karl Gerber (born August 11, 1912 in Bern , † June 2, 1974 in Pfäffikon ZH ; resident in Langnau im Emmental ) was a Swiss painter .

Life and work

Gerber was the first of six children to be born to a master baker in Bern. Two years later the family moved to Kleindietwil near Langenthal, where they “lived badly and rightly”. In 1926 the family moved to Zweisimmen in the Bernese Oberland, where Gerber attended secondary school and then completed an apprenticeship as a baker and confectioner in his father's business. In 1930, with the support of his parents and siblings, he was able to visit Lovis Corinth's Malakedemie in Berlin for a year .

Back in Zweisimmen, where he rejoined his father's business, he used the free hours in the afternoon or evening to paint until he was able to turn more and more to painting from the mid-1950s. He learned new techniques from friends in Zurich and in Ronco sopra Ascona , where he belonged to the “Circolo Verbano” between 1945 and 1954. In addition to Ticino, painting trips also take him to southern France, Paris and later to Egypt.

Gerber's work mainly includes still lifes, portraits and landscapes, especially from the area around Zweisimmen and Ticino. After his year in Berlin, he was influenced by Vincent van Gogh ; in the watercolors of the 1940s, the influence of his Ronches painter colleagues Manfred Henninger , Erwin Schönmann and Jan Schutter can be felt. At the beginning of the 1950s he turned into a completely independent artist who used a "colorful and impulsive" way of expression.

Gerber spent most of his life in Zweisimmen. In 2011 an exhibition of his work took place in the local museum there.

literature

  • Gerber, Karl. In: Sikart (status: 2011), accessed on February 28, 2016.
  • Karl-Christoph Gerber, Peter P. Riederer and Conradin Wolf: Karl Gerber, Zweisimmen, 1912–1974. Oil, watercolor, pastel, drawings, lithographs, etchings. Self-published by the Gerber families, Zweisimmen 1974 ( online ).
  • Niklaus Starck : Circolo Verbano. The painters of Ronco sopra Ascona. Porzio, Ascona / Breitenbach 2015. On Karl Gerber in particular pp. 36–42.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Niklaus Starck: Circolo Verbano. The painters of Ronco sopra Ascona. Porzio, Ascona 2015, p. 36.
  2. ^ Niklaus Starck: Circolo Verbano. The painters of Ronco sopra Ascona. Porzio, Ascona 2015, p. 39.
personal data
SURNAME Gerber, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Bern
DATE OF DEATH June 2nd 1974
Place of death Pfäffikon ZH