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Through June 30, 2024, the museum is featuring “Ingenious Women” — an interesting show about female painters who were active in northern and southern Europe from the 16th through the 18th centuries. Some of these women artists were highly successful in their day, although for the most part their careers have been forgotten. Sofonisba Anguissola (1532 — 1625) received commissions from the Spanish court, Judith Leyster (1609 — 1660) was active during the Dutch Golden Age (unfortunately, her entire body of artwork was once attributed to Frans Hals or to her husband), and Marietta Robusti (1554 — 1614) was the daughter of Jacopo Robusti, better known as Tintoretto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Kunstmuseum Basel presented the exhibition entitled “Matisse, Derain & Their Friends” — a high-quality examination of the Fauvist movement in Paris between 1904 and 1908 — through January 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Below: Self-Portrait<\/em>, 1907 by Sonia Delaunay<\/p>\n\n\n Fauvism liberated color from merely describing reality — so, for example, “blue” no longer equaled “sky”; green did not correspond to grass. This movement also freed artists from the repetitious brushstrokes and systems of handling paint (the planes, dots and dashes) practiced by Post-Impressionists like C\u00e9zanne, Seurat and Van Gogh. Even though the Fauvists lacked a manifesto, their radical canvases, replete with vivid colors and crude surfaces, rocked the world of art and opened the door for abstraction and Expressionism. “Fauve painting is not everything,” Matisse said, “but it is the foundation of everything” to come.<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Fondation Beyeler is a short tram ride from the historic center of Basel and offers a fine selection of classic modern art. In addition to paintings by Marlene Dumas, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso in its permanent collection, the Beyeler showcases artists who are less well-known in Europe such as Wayne Thiebaud (1920 — 2021) from the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n Through April 21, 2024, the Fondation Beyeler is devoting a retrospective to the art of the Canadian photographer Jeff Wall. This show features 55 works of art from Wall’s private collection, as well as large-format photographs from private holdings and international museums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beginning May 19, 2024 (until August), the entire museum and its pastoral surroundings are being transformed into a site for an experimental presentation of contemporary art. Check out the Beyeler’s website for more details.<\/p>\n\n\n Marianne von Werefkin (1860-1938) was one of the best painters of her day and a titan of Expressionism. The daughter of a Russian military commander, Marianne was a student of Ilya Repin, the great realist painter. At age 28, her career was hindered by a crippling bullet wound to her right hand during a hunting accident. Marianne met Alexej von Jawlensky in 1896 and, together, they relocated to Munich where she initiated a Salon that would change the history of Western modern art by integrating the Russian and German avant-garde movements. You may view several of Marianne von Werefkin’s psychologically powerful paintings (below) at the Kunst Museum Winterthur<\/a>\/Reinhart am Stadtgarten<\/a>, located 20 minutes by train outside of Zurich. <\/p>\n\n\n EDITOR’S NOTE: The following five paintings are often on view at the Albertina Museum in Vienna as part of the Batliner Collection.<\/p>\n\n\n Kandinsky was a member of another group (Lukasbruderschaft) founded by Marianne and, on New Year’s Eve in 1911, Kandinsky met Franz Marc in the home of Marianne and Alexej. These associations between the Russian emigrants and the native German painters August Macke, Marc and M\u00fcnter (and the Swiss-born Paul Klee) would lead to the formation of the highly influential Der Blaue Reiter movement from 1911 through 1914. Marianne von Werefkin exhibited with the Blue Rider group before the outbreak of World War I. When the Great War began, Marianne and Alexej immigrated to Switzerland. The couple separated by 1918, and Marianne moved alone to Ascona on Lake Maggiore where she continued to paint her colorful landscapes for the next 20 years until her death in 1938. <\/p>\n\n\n In 2021 and 2022, the Kunst Museum Winterthur\/Reinhart am Stadtgarten in Winterthur presented a delightful special exhibition entitled “Swiss Expressionism,” featuring more than 120 paintings, including landscapes created in all regions of Switzerland by Philipp Bauknecht, Hermann Scherer and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, among others. Bauknecht (1884-1933) was diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of 26 and moved from Stuttgart to Davos, the Swiss spa town, for his health. The Swiss Alps inspired Bauknecht to create landscapes depicting rural village life and the surrounding mountains. Four years after his death in Davos in 1933, the Nazi government in Germany declared his oeuvre “degenerate art.”<\/p>\n\n\n Hermann Scherer (1893-1927) was born in the district of L\u00f6rrach, Germany, near Basel. He admired the style of Expressionism championed by Die Br\u00fccke and, like Marianne von Werefkin, his paintings were strongly influenced by the 1922 exhibition of Edvard Munch’s work at the Kunsthaus Zurich. During that time, Scherer befriended Kirchner, whom he would join in Davos between 1922 and 1924 for long painting excursions. After Scherer died in 1927 following a serious illness, the Kunsthalle Basel commemorated his passing with a display of more than 200 sculptures and paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n A towering figure in 20th Century art, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) suffered a nervous breakdown after enlisting in the German Army during World War I and, in 1917, made his first visit to Davos, where he viewed an exhibit of paintings by Ferdinand Hodler. Having suffered years of depression, and addiction to morphine and alcohol, Kirchner was despondent in 1937 when 639 of his paintings were removed from German museums and 25 were displayed in the Degenerate Art Exhibition organized by the Nazi Party. Following the Nazi annexation of Austria, Kirchner feared a German invasion of Switzerland and died by suicide in 1938.<\/p>\n\n\n While in Winterthur, you will have an amazing opportunity to explore culture and nature. With more than 100,000 residents, Winterthur is the 6th largest Swiss city by population. Located northeast of Zurich, not far from Germany, this city boasts a famous Rosengarten with hundreds of rose varieties on a hilltop overlooking the Old Town and also the famous Swiss Science Center Technorama offering an experimental environment for children of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. For art lovers, there is the abovementioned Reinhart am Stadtgarten building — the first private museum in Switzerland — housing the Swiss, Austrian and German art acquired by the famous collector Oskar Reinhart. <\/p>\n\n\n In a separate building, within a few minutes’ walk, you can enter the Kunst Museum Winterthur\/Beim Stadthaus and enjoy a first-class collection of paintings by the artists who most inspired Marianne von Werefkin’s body of work, namely the Post-Impressionists and members of the group known as Les Nabis<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n The primary painters who formed Les Nabis included F\u00e9lix Vallotton, \u00c9douard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard (see images above). The Kunst Museum Winterthur possesses Paysage de Montagne<\/em> from 1912 by Bonnard (below), in addition to the portrait of postman Joseph Roulin and the painting of wheat fields entitled Soir d’\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em>, both from 1888, by Vincent van Gogh (bottom). <\/p>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/artloverstravel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Judith_Leyster_Self_Portrait.jpg\")
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<\/figure>\nPrevious Exhibit: “Matisse, Derain & Friends”<\/h4>\n\n\n
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<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n“Matisse, Derain & Friends” Closed in January 2024<\/h4>\n\n\n
Fondation Beyeler<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n<\/figure><\/div>\n\n<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nWayne Thiebaud’s Solo at the Fondation Beyeler Closed in May 2023<\/h2>\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\nMarianne von Werefkin was a Pioneer of Modernism & Expressionism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In Munich, through persistence and years of practice, Marianne von Werefkin improved the use of her right hand. She devoted many years to developing the career of Alexej von Jawlensky, her lover and prot\u00e9g\u00e9, and in 1906 she returned to drawing and painting. Inspired by the art of Gauguin, Anquetin and Munch, as well as Japanese printmaking and the Nabis painters, Marianne developed her own style of Expressionism marked by simplified forms and psychological content. Throughout 1908, Marianne and Alexej frequently traveled to rural Murnau to paint in the open air alongside another romantic couple, Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele M\u00fcnter. These four painters were founders of the Neue K\u00fcnstlervereinigung M\u00fcnchen (NKVM) group of artists in Munich. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a> Expressionism in the City of Winterthur<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Winterthur is Blessed with Fine Museums<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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