Wilhelm Gimmi

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Wilhelm Gimmi (born August 7, 1886 in Zurich , † August 29, 1965 in Chexbres ; resident in Dünnershaus ) was a Swiss painter , lithographer and designer .

life and work

Wilhelm Gimmi grew up as the son of a federal civil servant in Zurich. He trained as a primary school teacher at the Küsnacht teacher training college. He then taught for a year as a deputy at the secondary school in Wädenswil .

A scholarship enabled Gimmi to study at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1908 to 1911 . In the meantime he returned to Switzerland and from 1911 to 1913 took part in the exhibitions of the artists' association “Der Moderne Bund”. Gimmi founded this in Weggis together with his painter colleagues Hans Arp , Walter Helbig , Oscar Lüthy and Fritz Huf in 1911. The first exhibition at the Hotel du Lac in Lucerne from December 3 to 17, 1911 was attended by Hans Arp, Hermann Huber and the then already known Pablo Picasso , Paul Gauguin , Cuno Amiet , Othon Friesz , Ferdinand Hodler , Wassily Kandinsky and Henri Matisse .

Gimmi lived in Paris from 1911 to 1940. Gimmi first appeared in public in 1919 with ten works that he was able to exhibit in Berthe Weill's gallery . From 1920 he was a member of the Salon d'Automne and exhibited in several Parisian galleries. In 1934 he married Cécile Abramsky. Gimmi also collected art a. a. by Nicolas Poussin . However, he had to leave his art collection and many of his own works behind in Paris when he and his wife fled to Switzerland because of the Second World War in 1940 and settled in Chexbres.

With his friend Ernst Suter , he was often a guest at John Friedrich Vuilleumier and often met with his artist colleague Charles Häusermann (1886–1938). In all these years Gimmi took part in the most important Swiss art exhibitions. On behalf of the City of Zurich , he created murals for the Muraltengut and for the ETH Zurich .

In 1942 Gimmi received the Grand Prix de l'illustration from the Albert Skira publishing house for the book illustration of an edition of Gottfried Keller's Romeo and Juliet in the village . In the winter of 1956/1957 his works were shown in a comprehensive exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zürich . In 1962, Gimmi received the City of Zurich Prize for Fine Art. In 1968 the Musée Jenisch in Vevey dedicated a retrospective to him and in 1978 a catalog raisonné of the paintings.

literature

  • Wilhelm Sulser: About the painter Wilhelm Gimmi. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch , Vol. 25, 1950, pp. 17-21 ( e-periodica.ch )
  • Georges Peillex, Alfred Scheidegger: Wilhelm Gimmi. Zurich: Orell Füssli, 1972

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Gimmi
  2. ^ Necrology
  3. ↑ See Wilhelm Gimmi . In: Database of Modern Exhibitions (DoME). European Paintings and Drawings 1905–1915. https://exhibitions.univie.ac.at/person/ulan/500005984
personal data
SURNAME Gimmi, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter, lithographer and designer
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1965
Place of death Chexbres