The extraordinary destiny of a former Swiss police officer who became an artist

Untitled, 1996-1997, Philippe Jaccard RTBF

This is the story of an artist who painted for years without almost anyone knowing. The story begins in Geneva, where Philippe Jaccard was born and raised. After two years in the offices of the Swiss Bank Corporation, the 24-year-old realised that this was not the world for him. He joined the Geneva police force.

But then an obsession began to gnaw at him: painting. He leaves his job as soon as he can, keeps his uniform on, and rushes off to his apartment to paint. A few hours stolen from duty, a few canvases painted in a hurry.

This double life could not last. At the age of 35, he suffered a serious breakdown. The Swiss authorities classified him as permanently unable to work. He never returned to work. Later, he would confide that art had saved him from the psychiatric asylum. Painting became his only escape, his absolute necessity.

The disaster of the 444 canvases

In 1992, Philippe Jaccard acquired his first studio. In this 80-square-meter space, he worked frantically on his large-format paintings. But when he had to leave the premises, 444 large-format works were stored there. He had no room to keep them. Then what seemed like a shipwreck occurred: a Swiss dealer, whom Philippe hardly knew, bought the whole lot from him for a pittance.

In the end, the dealer, who specialized in modern art, didn’t know what to do with the paintings. For years, he stored them in an old sawmill. There, covered in wood dust and in deplorable conservation conditions, the works became almost impossible to appreciate.

“We had to carry out a real investigation to find out where his works were stored,” recounts Brussels gallerist Hervé Perdriolle. “Conservation was deplorable in this former sawmill, with the canvases covered in wood dust. They had to be restored.”

Added to this are some 160 paintings created in Burgundy, where the artist’s mother was from. Jaccard had entrusted his works to the commune, where they were also stored in deplorable conditions.

Hervé Perdriolle , founder of the Brussels gallery, in front of a work by Philippe Jaccard RTBF

The resurrection

The story could have ended there. But a meeting with gallery owner Hervé Perdriolle changes everything. An unlikely meeting. The artist, staying in Brussels, pushed open the doors of the Brussels gallery, attracted by the darkness of the paintings on display.

“I had a person in front of me,” recalls the gallerist. “I had intuition, the quality of the works proposed and the particularity of the character: we were able to recover a certain number of canvases and begin restoration work.”

It’s a risky business. “It’s still very difficult to make an artist known. We mobilize resources without knowing what will really happen,” he admits. The work involved is immense: exhibiting works at fairs, producing publications, creating a catalog.

‘Doing’ rather than ‘painting’

Philippe Jaccard doesn’t consider himself a painter, but a craftsman. In fact, he uses the word “make” rather than “paint”. A self-confessed autodidact, he started out as a child who dabbled – he had never drawn before. Over time, he developed a unique sense of drawing, a rapid, instinctive gesture. I always paint very quickly, even for a large canvas, between two and three hours. I never know what I’m going to paint “, he confides. His subjects? What he knows, what he sees. Trees, houses, hundreds of chairs – the only piece of furniture he apparently owns at home. Still lifes too, thanks to the florist on the first floor who lends him flower arrangements almost daily. And then self-portraits, ad infinitum.

Stored works by Philippe Jaccard are still waiting to be exhibited. RTBF

A work finally revealed

His canvases are not titled, except when he is painting someone’s portrait. “They’re dark subjects through which he brings light, and that’s what visitors tell us most often,” observes Hervé Perdriolle.

Forty years of painting, only a few exhibitions. Some 600 oils on canvas and paper, most of them unseen. “He never hung a single painting in his home. He never archived, documented or photographed his works,” explains Hervé Perdriolle.

Today, Philippe Jaccard’s work is on show in Brussels. Visitors discovering him for the first time compare him to Egon Schiele or Francis Bacon, so striking is his pictorial power.

Then there’s the question of price. “It’s extremely difficult to set a price; there are no quotations, it’s arbitrary. We try to get the right price,” explains the gallery owner. Some works are offered at 6 or 7,000 euros, others at 22,000 euros.

As for Philippe Jaccard, he continues to “do”; he has found total freedom in painting. His story is a reminder that art can exist in the shadows for decades, patiently waiting for a curious eye to bring it out of oblivion.

►See at Galerie Modesti Perdriolle in Ixelles until December 18

Nicolas Gillard