Walter Grab (painter)

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Walter Grab (born June 15, 1927 in Affoltern am Albis , † December 14, 1989 in Zurich ) was a Swiss painter and surrealist .

Live and act

Walter Grab, born in Affoltern, moved to Zurich in 1948. After a short activity as an accountant, he turned to painting on an autodidactic basis, supported by the painter Walter Jonas . The first exhibition participations took place in the same year. In the following two years study trips to Paris led to the first encounter with André Breton , the leading French surrealist, and Walter Grab turned away from figurative painting and towards surrealism. The first surrealistic pictures show a certain closeness to role models such as Yves Tanguy , Kurt Seligmann and Edgar Ende .

In 1949 the first exhibition of his surrealist works took place in the Galerie Palette in Zurich, which showed his works regularly until his death. In 1950 Walter Grab founded the international artist group Phoenix , who u. a. Ernst Maass , Otto Tschumi , Rudolf Schlichter , Kurt Seligmann , Ernst Fuchs , Edgar Ende and Arnulf Rainer belonged.

In 1951, thanks to the authorization of André Breton, he was able to take part in the first major international exhibition "Surrealist Painting in Europe" in Saarbrücken.

In 1957 Walter Grab can be seen in the short film “Die Muse” by Jakob Tuggener , which also gives you an insight into the world of Walter Grab: in front of a painter's eyes, the visitors to his exhibition are transformed into the surreal creatures of his imagination. The beauty of a girl seduces him into the realm of dreams. When he wakes up, he can no longer find her among the guests. He hurries home unhappy, pursued by his strange audience. She awaits him as a muse in his attic.

At the end of the 1950s he turned away from his artistic role models and began to develop his own form of geometric surrealism, to which he remained true until his death. Geometric forms in front of deep spaces now predominate in his pictures; Against a generally deep blue background, rooms and figures float into infinity. In 1965, Grab was invited , together with Meret Oppenheim , to represent Swiss surrealism at the 8th Biennale in São Paulo , where he was represented in the exhibition Surrealismo e arte fantastica .

Towards the end of the 1960s, he also dealt with collages and assemblages , which at that time met with little understanding. Thirty years after his death, these assemblages were rediscovered by several museums and collectors and are coveted objects today.

At the end of the 1970s, Walter Grab fell seriously ill, which led to retirement but also increased creativity. Supported by a few friends, he worked almost obsessively at home and rarely left his apartment, which was also his studio. His pictures from this time became brighter; the motifs were often infinite spaces behind half-open doors. In 1989 Walter Grab succumbed to his illness. His estate, which is entirely privately owned and in museums, includes over 1000 works. An extensive catalog of works is planned for 2021; the preparatory work began in 2018.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

  • 1949 Galerie Palette, Zurich
  • 1953 Galerie Palette, Zurich
  • 1954 Marbach Gallery, Bern
  • 1954 Kunstverein Konstanz , Wessenberghaus
  • 1955 Galerie Palette, Zurich
  • 1956 L'Entracte Gallery, Lausanne
  • 1956 Socrate Gallery, Biel
  • 1956 Madeleine Waser, Zurich
  • 1957 Zimmergalerie Frank, Frankfurt a. M.
  • 1957 Lutz & Meyer Gallery, Stuttgart
  • 1958 Galerie Palette, Zurich
  • 1958 L'Entracte Gallery, Lausanne
  • 1959 ABC Gallery, Winterthur
  • 1960 Lutz & Meyer Gallery, Stuttgart
  • 1960 Gallery Das Fenster, Frankfurt a. M.
  • 1962 Galerie Palette, Zurich
  • 1964 Maercklin Gallery, Stuttgart
  • 1965 Galerie Palette, Zurich
  • 1965 Gallery ABC, Winterthur
  • 1967 Gallery Palette, Zurich
  • 1968 Carrefour des Arts Gallery, Sion
  • 1972 Suzanne Bollag Gallery, Zurich
  • 1972 ABC Gallery, Winterthur
  • 1974 Halde 36 Gallery, Aarau
  • 1974 Suzanne Bollag Gallery, Zurich
  • 1974 Spaniöl Gallery, Chur
  • 1975 Kulturkreis Zollikon (retrospective)
  • 1976 Galerie am Platz, Eglisau
  • 1976 Suzanne Bollag Gallery, Zurich
  • 1977 Gallery at Kronenplatz, Affoltern a. A. (retrospective)
  • 1978 Lutz Gallery, Stuttgart
  • 1978 Suzanne Bollag Gallery, Zurich
  • 1980 Galerie am Platz, Eglisau
  • 1980 Suzanne Bollag Gallery, Zurich
  • 1982 Suzanne Bollag Gallery, Zurich
  • 1983 Galerie am Platz, Eglisau
  • 1983 Le Saphir Gallery, Uerikon
  • 1984 Palette Gallery, Zurich
  • 1985 Gallery Baviera, Cavigliano
  • 1985 Gallery for Contemporary Art, Bonstetten
  • 1986 Palette Gallery, Zurich
  • 1988 Gallery for Contemporary Art, Bonstetten
  • 1988 Galerie Palette, Zurich

Group exhibitions (selection)

Participation in over 200 group exhibitions at home and abroad

Publicly owned work

literature

  • Annegret Diethelm, Dieter Wyss : Walter Grab. AIV Verlag, Stuttgart 1978.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Grave, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter and surrealist
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Affoltern am Albis
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 1989
Place of death Zurich