BERN.- The Swiss painter Augusto Giacometti (1877–1947) made color the focus of his art. In a magnificent display of color with some 130 exhibits, the Kunstmuseum Bern is mounting an overview of the work of this pioneer of abstraction. On show are loans from leading Swiss and international museums, artworks from private collections that have never been on public view before, as well as pieces from the Kunstmuseum Bern Collection.

The real focus of Augusto Giacometti’s art is his preoccupation with color as a medium for expression and design. His talent for colors is very conspicuous already in his early works, which were still largely art nouveau in style. And this master of color was to ultimately become a pioneer of abstraction in art.

A Dynasty of Artists from Val Bregaglia
Augusto Giacometti is one of the famous Giacometti dynasty of artists from Stampa Village in Val Bregaglia. Alberto Giacometti’s father, Giovanni Giacometti, was a second cousin. Giovanni completed his artist’s training in Munich, while Augusto studied at the College of Applied Arts in Zurich. Nine years his senior, Giovanni returned to Val Bregaglia after completing his studies and worked there for the rest of his life, whereas Augusto pursued a very different artistic career. After spending pivotal years in Paris, he worked in Florence until the First World War and then moved to Zurich. However, his home village played a key role in his art as a motif right into his late years.

An Independent Swiss Painter of European Importance
The show is mounting some 130 exhibits, presenting an overview of all the phases of Augusto Giacometti’s artistic career. The museum is showing his trail-blazing pieces of abstraction as well as the magnificently colored flower still lifes, landscapes and cityscapes executed by the master of color later on in his career. And, not least, the exhibition is bringing Giacometti’s glass-window painting as a direct and pure medium for handling light and color. Among other pieces, Giacometti's glass windows from the “great minster,” Grossmuenster Zurich, are on show via livestream video. The presentation also palpably conveys the message of how important Giacometti was as a painter in a pan-European context. The show additionally highlights the independent path he pursued in art by comparing it to a selection of works by other masters of color, ranging from Paul Cézanne to Jerry Zeniuk.

Renowned Lenders and Never-yet-been-shown Works
The Kunstmuseum Bern cultivates a long tradition of monographic exhibitions of modernist Swiss artists of both genders. In the same vein they have presented a whole series of solo exhibitions in the last years for artists such as Giovanni Giacometti, Ferdinand Hodler, Otto Nebel, Meret Oppenheim and Félix Vallotton. Taking works from their own collection as the basis, they were able to enhance this selection with loans not only from leading Swiss museums, such as the Buendner Kunstmuseum and the Kunsthaus Zurich, but also the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Many of the pieces from private collections have never been on show to the general public before. They too have been reproduced for the first time in the catalogue, which likewise contains the latest findings in scholarly research on the life and work of Augusto Giacometti. For example, it is publishing the original manuscript for Giacometti’s radio lecture that was entitled “Color and I”, wherein, in 1933, the artist formulated his reflections on the fundamental principles and the potential of color.