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THE SOUL OF SWISS ART FROM THE HEART OF SWITZERLAND

EVELINA RIOUKHINA, UNECE

But to stay with the allegory, the Swiss also have their characteristic native dishes…” and in this allegoric sense Edouard Vallet, Genevan painter, is exactly such a native dish. He is one Switzerland’s major painters, and undoubtedly one of the most genuine, one of the most interesting painters whose exhibition is currently being held in one of the most impressive and renowned exhibition
halls in Switzerland, the museum of the Foundation of Pierre Gianadda in Martigny.

Foundation Pierre Gianadda – a Cultural Heart in the Centre of Switzerland
The Foundation itself is important in Swiss culture, being itself part of its historical, architectural and cultural heritage (who knows, maybe one day it will be listed among the UNESCO sites ?). For me, this Foundation is like the heart of culture in the very centre of Switzerland. It is enough to look at the list of the exhibition that were, or are to be, held in the museum and park of this Foundation : Claudel, Rodin, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Luigi le berger, French painting from the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Félix Vallotton, Jean Fatrier, Treasures from the monastery of St. Catherine in Mount Sinai, Masterworks from the Phillips Collection Washington, Albert Anker, Paul Signac, Jean Lecoultre, Berthe Morisot, Kees van Dongen, Marius Borgeaud, Picasso, Russian icons from the State Tretyakov Gallery, Kandinski and Russia, Van Gogh, Sam Szafran, Pierre Bonnard, Turner and the Alps, Hans Erni, Paul Gauguin, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Joan Miro, Raoul Dufy, Marcel Imsand-Anne Rosat-Michel Favre, Edouard Manet, Suzanne Valadon, Larionov-Gontcharova, Nicolas de Staël, Egon Schiele, Albert Chavaz, Marie Laurencin, Edgar Degas, Jean Dubuffet, Georges Borgeaud, Ben Nicholson, Georges Braque, From Goya to Matisse, Calima, pre-Columbian Colombia, Franco Franchi, Mizette Putallaz, Camille Claudel, Modigliani, Fernando Botero, Louis Soutter, Henry Moore, Jules Bissier, Treasures from the São Paulo Museum, Paul Delvaux, Toulouse-Lautrec, Serge Poliakoff, Japanese Arts in Swiss collections, Gaston Chaissac, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Alberto Giacometti, Isabelle Tabin-Darbellay, Paul Klee, Bernard Cathelin, not to say about earlier exhibition of 2006 of the Chefd’oeuvres of the European Paintings from the Metropolian Museum of New York or of exhibitions to come in 2007 and 2008 such as “Picasso and the circus” and Marc Chagall. From this list, not even complete, my colleagues from almost all continents and countries will recognise their national artists. The list demonstrates why the Foundation Pierre Gianadda may be called the cultural heart, or at least one of its main arteries, of Switzerland.

History of the Foundation : In the spring of 1976 the engineer Leonard Gianadda discovered the ruins of a Roman temple as he was attempting to build an apartment block. Soon after his discovery his brother Pierre was killed in an airplane crash. Leonard then decided to set up a Foundation in his brother’s memory. Apart from the temporary exhibitions listed above the Foundation’s museum in Martigny now contains several outstanding permanent collections : paintings in the Room of Louis and Evelyn Franck, Motorcars museum, the Sculpture Park, the Gallo-Roman museum. Classical music concerts are also organised regularly in the centre of the exhibition hall. Pages and pages could be written about each of these collections, and even about each of the exhibited items within each collection :

Room Louis and Evelyn Franck. Since June 1998, the Salle du Belvédère, a new display area in the Pierre Gianadda Foundation, has been home to ten masterpieces from the collection of Louis and Evelyn Franck including major works by Cézanne, Van Gogh, James Ensor, Toulouse-Lautrec, Kees Van Dongen and Picasso, on loan to Martigny from the Fondation Socindec for a period of 15 years.

The Motocars Museum is located at the ground floor of the Foundation. It has a superb collection of about fifty antique cars (1897-1939). Some examples : Benz (1897), steam Stanley, Rolls Royce (Silver Ghost), De Dion Bouton, Germain, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia’s Delaunay-Belleville, a little Bugatti Royal, Mercedes Benz (1897), Alfa-Romeo 1750cc, Isotta-Fraschini, Hispano-Suiza. There is also an outstanding collection of Swiss-made cars : 3 Pic-Pic, 5 Martini, 2 Turicum, 2 Sigma, Zedel, Stella, Maximag. Many of these models are the world’s only surviving examples, and all vehicles are in working order. A car procession takes place from time to time when all these cars drive along the streets of Martigny.

The Sculpture park. The Foundation’s gardens, with their shade-providing trees and restful stretches of water, contain interesting Gallo-Roman remains, including thermal baths and the wall of a large cloister (temenos). They also contain a permanent collection of works by artists such as César, Arman, Ernst, Bourdelle, Chillida, Chagall, Dubuffet, Engel, Penalba, Rouiller, Rodin, Dubach, Brancusi, Tommasini, Miró, Moore, Marini, Suter, Arp, Richier, Calder, Segal, Lalanne, Venet, Poncet, Maillol, Niki de Saint Phalle. Temporary sculpture exhibitions are organised regularly. In 1964, Ira Kostelitz ordered a monumental mosaic as well as the two sculptures from Marc Chagall : “Bird” and “Fish”, to decorate her Parisian residence. Some forty years later, Ira’s husband offered them to Léonard and Annette Gianadda who exhibited them in the Park of Sculptures of the Pierre Gianadda Foundation. An identical pavilion has been reconstituted in the Gardens to accommodate the Chagall Court.

Edouard Vallet, Inspired Painter of the Valais – Now in the Foundation Pierre Gianadda
Today the Foundation Pierre Gianadda presents the Genevan painter, Edouard Vallet, who is one of the major representatives of Swiss art of the beginning of the 20th century. Vallet has his place in the most renowned museums of Switzerland. Numerous exhibitions during and after the life of the artist helped to anchor his name in the collective memory, and his names shines among those of others of the period, such as Ferdinand Hodler, Félix Vallotton, Cuno Amiet, Giovanni Giacometti, Giovanni Segantini or his fellow-artist in the Valais : Ernest Biéler. But his love for the Valais, his inspiration, his unique way of painting landscapes and people of Valais and the fact that this renowned Foundation, situated in the heart of Valais, even this strange similarity Valais-Vallet (the surname of the painter, and the name of the Valais canton of Switzerland have the identical pronunciation in French) bring special significance to this exhibition.
Vallet was born in 1876 in Geneva in a family of merchants. His father died the following year. Edouard and his two sisters were brought up by their grandmother. He tried himself first as an apprentice to a sculptor, then took a course in engraving, first at the Geneva School of Industrial Arts in Geneva, later in the Geneva School of Fine Arts. In the latter he was especially influenced by two of his illustrious teachers, namely Camille Corot (1796-1875) and Barthélémy Menn (1815-1893). Precision and perfection were important to him. He spent hours drawing the hands of his grandmother, for example. Each of his works was preceded by a number of preparatory drawings. Whenever possible he used life models. He painted simple people : peasants, fishermen, small merchants as well as landscapes.

A lengthy stay in Italy when he was 29 years old was followed by his “discovery” of the Valais. From that time (1908) the Valais became the source of his inspiration. While residing in Hérémence he painted his first chefd’oeuvres “The spring is coming” and “Sunday morning”. He discovered Ayen, Vercorin, Savièse where he met his future wife, the painter Marguerite Gilliard.

This was the most creative period of his artistic work. The landscape becomes monumental; his model the grandiose nature of the Valais. At that time, moreover, not only genre, with people in their rural context, but also the portrait becomes increasingly important in his painting. A canvas of Vallet can be recognized by a lack of polish (matité) and by the earthy accents of his palette, also by a wide range of colours.

The artist has a special vision. He frames the monumental landscape as if joining poetry with geometry. He often comes back to the same subject, to the same landscape, multiplying the facets, the angles and the chromatic variations. Although he found all his inspiration in the Valais, he never made his painting folkloric. He remains to this day one of the major painters of Switzerland, and one of the most important painters of the Valais, painting real life as he saw it.

You might like this painter or not, you can go and see the exhibition until 4 March and form your own judgment. But this is one of the most native and most real representatives of Swiss painting and it is worth seeing this exhibition for anyone who would like to feel the artistic Swiss soul.

(Background documentation for this article was graciously made availably for this article in UNSpecial by the Foundation’s staff who also provided by the Photos of the exhibition and authorised their publication. Other photos are by myself).