Researchers from the University of Basel have found unique historical film footage of Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler - one of Switzerland's best-known and most widely admired artists - shot during the Swiss National Exhibition in Geneva in 1896.
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“It’s a wonderful discovery. It’s moving to see Hodler in motion and gives us a more vivid picture of him,” said Niklaus Manuel Güdel, director of Archives Jura Brüschweiler, in a statement External linkon Friday. The institution looks after much of the painter’s archives.
Hodler, who lived from 1853 to 1918, appears twice in the short black-and-white footage holding an umbrella and a cigar. This year marks the centenary of the artist’s death. Several major exhibitions and events are planned. The public will be able to discover the rare footage at an exhibition at the Foundation Martin Bodmer in Cologny, Geneva, from September 21.
The discovery was made by a team of researchers from the University of Basel who have been analysing a film by François-Henri Lavanchy-Clarke, entitled “Basel – The bridge over the Rhine” and sequences shot on May 16,1896 at the Swiss National Exhibition in Geneva. The research team identified Hodler after studying the relationships between the film’s protagonists and a group of Swiss artists visiting the exhibition.
At the time, Hodler was considered one of Switzerland’s leading artists. He painted over 700 landscapes during his long career, drawing inspiration from the Bernese Oberland and Lake Geneva. He developed a unique approach to landscape painting through his knowledge of nature, mineralogy and geology, which he studied at university, and by making thousands of sketches, which he then developed in his studio using his memory and imagination.
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Bern-based artist Schindler started his collection in 1956, after he visited an exhibition of Hodler’s work. He purchased the majority of his sketches and drawings from the Swiss artist’s widow, Berthe Hodler. Between 1999 and 2002 Schindler entrusted the then-director of the Musée Jenisch with three items from his collection. He recently gave the museum…
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The exhibition “Ferdinand Hodler: View to Infinity” features about 80 works from the last five years of the artist’s life (1913–1918).(Pictures: Beyeler Foundation )
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Some 120 of his little-known drawings, sketchbooks, posters and etchings are currently on display at the Geneva Art and History Museum’s graphic art department until February 19, 2012. Together with the Kunsthaus in Zurich and Bern’s Kunstmuseum, Geneva has one of the world’s most important collections of Hodler works, comprising 144 paintings, 800 drawings and…
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