ZURICH.- This June, Koller Auctions will offer the Flims Panorama, an important and well-known work by Giovanni Giacometti. Giacometti, the father of artists Alberto and Diego Giacometti, painted the three-part oil on canvas in 1904 for the luxurious Hotel Waldhaus, now called Waldhaus Flims Mountain Resort & Spa (“Waldhaus Flims”), to mark the opening of the hotel’s new casino. The painting remains one of Giacometti’s seminal works. The Waldhaus Flims is visible in the central section of the painting, nestled in a light-filled spring landscape depicting the Flims valley against a majestic backdrop of the Swiss Alps. The right-hand section shows the Caumasee lake with its bath house, constructed in 1880, and the left-hand painting depicts another view from the upper part of the lake of the Waldhaus and Bellavista spa and hotel.

A key work in Giacometti’s artistic development
The Panorama of Flims was painted at a crucial moment in Giacometti’s career: his mentor, Giovanni Segantini, had died only a few years earlier, and Giacometti was in the process of distancing himself from the older artist’s manner. This is particularly evident in the side panels, in which Giacometti is clearly developing a progressive and personal style. The work is significant not only for its aesthetically pleasing aspect, but because it represents the very beginning of Giovanni Giacometti’s artistic breakthrough.

Forgotten for 80 years before being rediscovered
Shortly after its installation, Giacometti’s painting was removed from the Waldhaus Flims and placed into storage for reasons unknown. For eighty years, the painting’s existence was largely forgotten, until hotel director Josef Müller rediscovered the work in August of 1986 in the hotel’s deep storage. In the presence of Giacometti’s son Bruno and many members of the press, the work was once more exhibited in the Waldhaus Flims, where it remained until very recently. Last year, Z Capital Partners purchased the Waldhaus Flims and will soon pursue a renovation program that will maintain the tradition of the historic hotel as well as its iconic place within the community of Flims. Z Capital ultimately decided that the artwork will be more properly conserved and celebrated in a private or public collection rather than in a busy and popular hotel.