Leonhard Meisser (painter)

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Leonhard Meisser (born December 3, 1902 in Chur ; † August 2, 1977 there , entitled to live in Chur and Davos ) was a Swiss painter , draftsman and printmaker .

life and work

Leonhard Meisser was the son of the merchant Emanuel Abraham and Catharina, nee Ragaz. In Chur he attended schools; He also devoted himself to his interests in nature and playing the violin. After graduating from high school, Meisser studied botany at the University of Zurich from 1922 to 1923 . When he then stayed in Dresden and saw the works in the Dresden gallery, Meisser decided to pursue a career as a painter.

Meisser traveled to Paris in 1923 for artistic training , where he shared an apartment with Alberto Giacometti for a short time . Giacometti later became his mentor.

Together with Giacometti, Albert Lindegger , Willy Guggenheim and Johann Peter Flück (1902–1954), Meisser studied from 1924 to 1926 at André Lhote's Académie . The encounter with the Impressionists, especially the so-called Nabis, was decisive for Meisser's artistic development . Meisser first traveled to Provence from Paris . He met Andreas Walser in Paris in 1928 and made friends with him.

Meisser returned to Chur after the death of his father in 1931 and received several orders for wall and glass paintings . Until 1939 he returned frequently to Paris. For the time being, Meisser turned to drawing with particular zeal and sought to capture the forms of the alpine environment in clear outlines. Over time, the line appeared less and less as a contour. As an enthusiastic watercolorist , Meisser had here and there given the oil paint almost that delicacy and transparency that only watercolors actually make possible. The shape was determined less by its limits than by brightness, color and tone values.

Meisser was a founding member of the Bünder section of the GSMBA in 1936 . In 1937 he met Anny Vonzun , whom he married in 1939. In 1954 the couple moved into their own studio in Chur in the upper “Lürlibad” on Chur's Prasserieweg. After the Second World War , Meisser and his wife repeatedly went on study trips to Paris, Provence, Camargue, Brittany, Spain, Umbria, Siena, Rome, Apulia, Venice, Greece and Morocco. The resulting sketch sheets were converted into pictures in the studio at home. They exhibited the works regularly in numerous galleries.

Meisser also exhibited his works in the Kunsthalle Bern , the Kunsthaus Zürich , the Kunstmuseum Luzern , the Kunstmuseum Bern , the Bündner Kunstmuseum , the Kunsthaus Glarus and the Kunstmuseum Solothurn . From 1939 to 1947 he was a curator at the Bündner Kunsthaus and from 1948 to 1953 a member of the Federal Art Commission.

Meisser received a federal art grant in 1934 and the Graubünden Culture Prize in 1974.

The “Leonard Meisser and Anny Vonzun Foundation” is active in ecclesiastical, political or secular associations and is based in Chur.

literature

  • Paul Zinsli : On the graphic work of Leonhard Meisser. In: Bündner Jahrbuch: Zeitschrift für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte Graubünden, Vol. 2, 1946, pp. 47–51 ( digitized version ).
  • Ulrich Christoffel : Leonhard Meisser. In: Bündner Jahrbuch: Zeitschrift für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte Graubünden, Vol. 5, 1963, pp. 127–130 ( digitized version ).
  • Gabriel Peter: Leonhard Meisser on his seventieth birthday. In: Bündner Jahrbuch: Zeitschrift für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte Graubünden, Vol. 15, 1973, pp. 59–66 ( digitized version ).
  • Edi Wolfensberger: Traces of a life and life's work: on Leonhard Meisser's 100th birthday. In: Bündner Jahrbuch: Journal for Art, Culture and History of Graubünden, Vol. 45, 2003, pp. 27–32.
  • Peter Metz: Encounters with Leonhard and Anny Meisser-Vonzun. In: Bündner Jahrbuch: Zeitschrift für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte Graubünden, Vol. 45, 2003, pp. 33–41.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Leonhard Meisser: Praise the watercolors. Retrieved August 2, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Meisser, Leonhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter, draftsman and printmaker
DATE OF BIRTH December 3, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Chur
DATE OF DEATH 2nd August 1977
Place of death Chur