ASCONA.- A landmark exhibition is celebrating the life and work of Swiss-French artist Félix Vallotton, a century after his death. The show, titled Félix Vallotton – A Monument to Beauty, is the centerpiece of a year-long tribute across Switzerland, honoring a versatile and often defiant figure in modern art.

The exhibition at the Castello San Materno Museum in Ascona features 55 paintings, drawings, and prints, many of which are on rare loan from a private Swiss collection. Curated by Harald Fiebig, the show takes visitors on a journey through Vallotton's career, revealing how he moved from meticulously painted portraits of the wealthy to his groundbreaking graphic work that would make him a household name.

Known for his cool, detached style, Vallotton was a master of observation. The exhibition title itself is a paradox, as his art is both a testament to his precise, almost severe gaze and a profound celebration of beauty.

The collection traces his artistic evolution, from his early portraits to his influential time with the Nabis group, a movement known for its bold colors and flattened forms. Visitors will see his stunning landscapes from his travels through Europe, including a series of striking views of Perugia, Italy, where he captured the city's ancient streets in communion with the surrounding hills.

While his paintings were admired, it was Vallotton's work as a graphic artist that brought him widespread fame. He was a pioneer in printmaking, and the exhibition highlights his most famous series, including a collection of mountain scenes influenced by Japanese art and his Paris intense series, which captured the energy of metropolitan life in stark black and white.

A special focus of the show is Vallotton’s Intimités series. In these woodcuts, he used dramatic black-and-white contrasts to peel back the layers of polite society, revealing a hidden world of suspicion, fear, and despair in bourgeois relationships. It's a powerful statement that shows how his work, even at its most beautiful, never shied away from the deeper, darker truths of human nature.