On display Luciano Castelli Haarzupfer (Hair Fleecing), 1973 Like Urs Lüthi, who also came from Lucerne, Castelli began his career in the early 1970s with representations of his own body, whether in performances…
On display Tadeusz Kantor Multipart, 1970 A visual artist and creator of happenings, Tadeusz Kantor was a major figure on the Polish experimental theatre scene as production designer, director and author.…
On display Marcel Broodthaers Le drapeau noir (Black Flag), 1968 In 1968 Marcel Broodthaers started making plastic panels onto which he thermoformed texts sometimes accompanied by an image or punctuation marks, in the manner of…
On display Janos Urban Construction n° 6, 1969 In 1956 Janos Urban reached Switzerland as a political refugee from his native Hungary. Having begun his artistic training in Budapest, he now continued at…
On display Gustave Buchet Danseuse en mouvement (Dancer in Motion), 1918 Trained at the École des beaux-arts in Geneva, Gustave Buchet first stayed in Paris in winter 1910. In 1915 he was in Geneva as cofounder…
On display Gustave Courbet Le vieil arbre dans la gorge (The Old Tree in the Gorge), 1871 From the early 1840s on, Gustave Courbet’s paintings expressed both the vagaries of collective history and his own inner torment. His landscapes and still lifes…
On display François Bocion Filets et pêcheurs (Nets and Fishermen), c. 1877 François Bocion’s painting depicts an everyday fishing scene, a common theme in his work from the 1860s on. A young fisherman just back from an…
On display Inconnu [Suisse occidentale] Sainte Anne enseignant la Vierge (Saint Anne Teaching the Virgin to Read), c. 1550-1580 Anne and Joachim, Mary’s parents, are not mentioned in the Bible but do appear in the Apocrypha. The cult of Saint Anne developed in the…
On display Émile-Antoine Bourdelle Tête d’Apollon (Head of Apollo), between 1900 and 1909 Émile-Antoine Bourdelle, who was a keen student of Greek art, took inspiration from the works of Antiquity for many of his pieces. One such was…
On display Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen L’aurore (Aurora), 1903 A major exhibition and sale of 101 works by Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen opened in Paris in 1903. In the catalogue, the writer Anatole France emphasised the…
On display Giuseppe Penone A occhi chiusi (With Eyes Closed), 2018 Giuseppe Penone spent his early years in the countryside, giving him an inalienable sense of the importance of the bond between humans and nature and…
On display Pierre Soulages Peinture (Painting), 1956 After having given up an opportunity to study at the École Nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1937, Soulages returned to the city in…
On display VALIE EXPORT Space Seeing - Space Hearing, 1973–4 In 1967, VALIE EXPORT abandoned her birth surname for that of a brand of cheap cigarettes, ‘Smart Export’, which became her artist and legal name.…
On display Tom Burr Abstract Lausanne II / Lausanne Abstrait II, 2006 Tom Burr produces works – photographs, sculptures and installations – that revisit the formal vocabulary of the avant-gardes, especially minimalism and post-minimalism, and combines pop…
On display Leiko Ikemura Eintauchen (Submerging), 1999 Leiko Ikemura’s pictorial practice took a new turn in the early 1990s. Her expressive early paintings gave way to a more restrained form, with strokes…
On display Jean Otth Limite E (Limit E), 1973 Jean Otth made his first video works in 1971 and showed them the following year at Galerie Impact in Lausanne (Action Film Vidéo) and at…
On display Ferdinand Hodler Le lac Léman vu de Chexbres (Lake Geneva Seen from Chexbres), 1904 On the train journey into Lausanne from Germanic Switzerland, travellers reaching the heights of Chexbres enjoy spectacular panoramas as Lake Geneva and the Alps of…
On display Eugène Burnand Taureau dans les Alpes (Bull in the Alps), 1884 Eugène Burnand, from the canton of Vaud, moved to Paris in 1872 and studied with Jean-Léon Gérôme. By the early 1880s he was working within…
On display Geneviève Claisse Soleil des eaux (Sun of waters), 1965 Geneviève Claisse’s first steps in art in the latter half of the 1950s took her into geometric abstraction, exploring its most elementary possibilities over the…
On display Giovanni Giacometti Nature morte aux livres (Still Life with Books), vers 1907-1908 After studying applied arts in Munich, Giovanni Giacometti left for Paris in 1888 with his friend Cuno Amiet to further his artistic education. However, his…
On display François Dubois Le massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy(The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre), vers 1572-1584 This painting represents the massacre of the Protestants that was triggered on 24 August 1572 in Paris and continued for several days: The Saint Bartholomew’s Day…
On display Maria Helena Viera da Silva La ville suspendue (Hanging City), 1952 Maria Helena Vieira da Silva was a member of the Second Paris School, a loose group of post-war artists whose best-known members include Jean Bazaine,…
On display Jacques Sablet La tarentelle (Tarentella), 1799 Forced to flee Rome due to repercussions from the French Revolution, Jacques Sablet arrived in Paris in January 1794. There he was accepted into the…
On display Albert Anker La Mariette aux fraises (Mariette with Strawberries), 1884 After a youth spent between Anet, Neuchâtel and Bern, Albert Anker put his two languages (French and German) to use in conquering the art markets…
On display Zao Wou-Ki Hommage à Edgar Varèse – 25.10.64(Homage to Edgar Varèse – 25.10.64), 1964 The Chinese-born artist Zao Wou-Ki was one of the leading figures of lyrical abstraction from the late 1950s on. He settled in France in 1948…
On display Leiko Ikemura Gelbe Figur mit drei Armen (Yellow Figure with Three Arms), 1996 Leiko Ikemura left her native Japan for Europe in 1972 and began developing her oeuvre after studying drawing at the Seville school for fine arts,…
On display John M Armleder Furniture Sculpture 189, 1988 In 1969, John M Armleder organised his first public event, the Ecart Happening Festival, in Geneva. This marked the creation of the Ecart group, part…
![Inconnu [Suisse occidentale], Sainte Anne enseignant la Vierge (Saint Anne Teaching the Virgin to Read), c. 1550-1580](https://www.mcba.ch/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/215_INCONNU_num4000_nr-768x1024.jpg)
