Théodore Delachaux

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Théodore Delachaux (born May 21, 1879 in Interlaken , † April 24, 1949 in Corcelles-Cormondrèche , resident in La Chaux-de-Fonds ) was a Swiss teacher , painter , draftsman , educator , curator and ethnologist .

life and work

Delachaux was the son of a doctor who introduced him to the natural sciences at an early age. His maternal grandfather was the entomologist and botanist Charles Henri Godet (1797–1879).

At the age of eleven, Delachaux wrote a book about plankton , which he illustrated with drawings based on his microscopic studies. Delachaux attended schools in Neuchâtel and lived with his uncle Paul Godet (1836–1911), the director of the Neuchâtel Natural History Museum. With this Delachaux continued his scientific training.

After graduating from high school, Delachaux studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and was taught by Luc-Olivier Merson . Delachaux returned to Neuchâtel in 1912, where he taught as a drawing teacher at the grammar school and from 1916 at the vocational school for girls until 1944.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Delachaux spent some time with his brother, the doctor Constant Delachaux (1875–1952), in the Pays d'Enhaut district and discovered the work of Johann Jakob Hauswirth . The brothers bought works from Hauswirth, mostly from private owners, in order to build their own collections.

In addition to teaching, Delachaux painted and helped found an art school and exhibition gallery for painting and applied arts. He also collected Swiss folk art throughout his life , a. a. Toys and ceramics.

In 1919 Delachaux discovered the species Troglochaetus beranecki in the Grotte du Ver, a cave in the Areuse Gorge. When the curator of the Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel Charles Knapp (1855–1921) died, Delachaux, supported by Gustave Jéquier , succeeded him. As a result, Delachaux had to label and catalog over 20,000 objects, expand the collections and create new rooms for them. He also campaigned to make the museum accessible to the general public and thus to convey education.

Delachaux led the ethnographic expedition in Angola from 1932 to 1933 and brought back extensive documentation about their peoples from this trip. As a curator, Delachaux regularly worked on various archaeological excavations. He often helped Paul Vouga in his work, either as a naturalist or as an illustrator. After Vouga's death in 1940, he was appointed curator of the prehistoric collections of the Museum of History and Archeology and took over teaching at the University of Neuchâtel , which he held until 1949. Delachaux also worked for several years as an assistant in the geology laboratory of Professor Otto Fuhrmann . So he illustrated a. a. Fuhrmann's scientific work on tapeworms .

When Delachaux handed over the management of the Ethnographic Museum to Jean Gabus (1908–1992) in 1945 , he took over the management of the Natural History Museum Neuchâtel from Otto Fuhrmann and worked on its further development until a year before his death.

literature

  • Jean G. Baer : Théodore Delachaux (1879-1949) . In: Bulletin de la Société Neuchâteloise des Sciences Naturelles , Vol. 73, 1950, pp. 1-19 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ernst Grell: Knapp, Charles. Historical encyclopedia of Switzerland, accessed on August 10, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Théodore Delachaux (1879–1949). Ethnographic Museum Neuchâtel, accessed on August 10, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Arno Aeby: Gabus, Jean. Historical encyclopedia of Switzerland, accessed on August 10, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Delachaux, Théodore
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss teacher, painter, draftsman, pedagogue, curator and ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Interlaken
DATE OF DEATH April 24, 1949
Place of death Corcelles-Cormondrèche