Walter Kern (artist)

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Walter Kern (born May 26, 1898 in Küsnacht ; † October 12, 1966 in Uttwil ; resident in Berlingen ) was a Swiss artist , poet , art writer and art critic .

life and work

Walter Kern worked as a poet and painter since his youth . At the age of 19 he exhibited at the Kunsthaus Zürich . Then Kern moved to Geneva with his childhood friend Johann Robert Schürch . From 1920 to 1922 he worked as a commercial clerk and also continued to cultivate his artistic talents. Afterwards, Kern lived and worked in Thun , Barcelona , Tarragona , Madrid , Rome and Florence .

In 1924, Kern published his first volume of poetry. In 1927 he married Vreni Nikees, with whom he had a son and a daughter. In 1928, Kern exhibited at the 17th national art exhibition in Zurich . In 1930 he was self-published "PRA" (inversion based on Arp) out poems by Hans Arp , with whom he had a lifelong friendship.

From 1930 to 1943 Kern was the spa director in Davos , where he served cultural life with the Bündnerland magazine and was on friendly terms with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner . During this time, Kern wrote monographs on Franz Rederer , Oscar Lüthy , Hermann Huber , Oskar Kokoschka and painting in Graubünden .

Kasimir Edschmid called Kern one of the most versatile talents in Switzerland .

In 1942, Kern moved to the “Villa Sternheim” in Uttwil, which belonged to the entrepreneur and writer Emanuel Stickelberger and where Henry van de Velde and Carl Sternheim used to live. Until his death Paul Ilg lived with his wife interest-free in the guest house of the «Villa Sternheim». Kern, Ilg, Stickelberger and other friends met once a week for literary soirées in the “Bad Uttwil” restaurant.

From 1953 to 1964, Kern was print shop director in Winterthur and editor of bibliophile prints.

Thanks to the donation from Walter Kern's son, Rätus Kern, Walter Kern's lively correspondence with well over a hundred cultural workers has been publicly accessible in the SIK-ISEA estate archive since 2008.

literature

  • Josef Paul Hodin : Walter Kern. In: Das Werk: Architektur und Kunst = L'oeuvre: architecture et art, Vol. 53, 1966, pp. 74–77 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Thurgauer Jahrbuch : Nekrolog für Walter Kern. Retrieved March 21, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Magdalena Plüss: Rederer, Franz Joseph. Sikart, accessed March 21, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Urs Oskar Keller: Villa Sternheim - A man of the world in the province. St. Galler Tagblatt, November 14, 2013, accessed on March 21, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Kern, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss artist, poet, art writer and art critic
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Küsnacht
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 1966
Place of death Uttwil