Hans Erni – 100th birthday

From 28 November 2008 – 1 March 2009

Since 1989, every ten years or so, Hans Erni is the guest of the Fondation Pierre Gianadda in Martigny. The exhibition, which is meant to be a tribute to the Lucerne artist, will open on 28 November. He, of whose existence nobody in Switzerland is un-aware, will be celebrating his hundredth birthday on 21 February 2009. And although his venerable age takes some beating, let us not forget that today Erni is still on the job daily, lucid, ac-tive and combative.

For Jacques Dominique Rouiller, the curator of the exhibition, this is a real challenge. It is impossible to summarize 80 years of creation, yet he is obliged to make this retrospective different from those that preceded it. His presentation aims to be intimate and original. Most of the works shown have never been seen in Martigny. They often carry the stamp – even in the landscapes – of someone who originally trained as a land-surveyor, then as an architectural draughtsman. His bent for the world of art in general derives from his wonderment at his father, a mechanic on the boats that ply Lake Lucerne, who used to draw in the margins of his books or make small animals for the great joy of his seven children.

After having travelled in his head, Erni discovered Paris, Lon-don and Berlin. Each of these stopovers and stays contributed to his training, brought new discoveries and experience. In 1951, Jean Gabus, the then Manager of the Neuchâtel Museum of Ethnography, took him along with him on a visit to Mauritania and, in 1971, they went to Niger. The exhibition includes a number of temperas, gouaches and drawings that portray these happy parentheses in the painter’s work. They depict everyday life, handicrafts and techniques as analysed by an eye which re-produced them with precision, grace and spontaneity. The sketchbooks are essentially intimate. It was urgent to share them by enlarging what can only be described as travel notes. By way of demonstration, some forty drawings depict the sequence of things he saw during his travels around Africa, China and In-dia. It would not be fortuitous to compare them to comic strips. From 1958 to 1964, Erni became the Artistic Manager of an encyclopaedic publication for Aldus Books in London and Dou-bleday in New York. The exhibition includes six pictures that testify to this singular and formative adventure.

Léonard Gianadda, who is constantly seeking synergies, ap-proached Martigny Manor and its organiser, Mads Olesen, in order to also ensure the presence of his friend, Erni, in the centre of town. Thus 90 posters and 25 illustrated books will rub shoulders in an exhibition conceived by Jean-Charles Giroud, the current Manager of the Geneva Library and who is also a special-ist in poster art. In parallel, the Foundation will show only a few posters together with engravings and beautiful books, mainly in the Pierre and André Gonin editions. Erni faithfully worked for the Book Guild in Lausanne, thereby offering the opportunity to present the monograph which Claude Roy devoted to him in 1964, the cover and title pages of which are decorated with dedicated paintings unknown to the public. The essence of the text published by the French journalist and writer, Albert Mer-moud, in 1964 will enrich the catalogue thanks to the comprehen-sion of his heirs.

Erni was only partially an easel painter, the proof being his love of large surfaces. The monumental fresco, Switzerland, country of popular holidays, measuring 5 m by 100 m, is an exam-ple. It was one of the highlights of the 1939 Swiss National Exhibition. Twenty years later, in 1958, the watch-making sec-tion of the Swiss Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair was deco-rated with the frescos of the Lucerne painter on the subject of the conquest of time. Reproduced in large size at the exhibi-tion, they are associated with the model of the Pavilion, on loan by the La Chaux-de-Fonds International Watch and Clock Mu-seum where the original frescos are exposed at home.

The short film made by Antoine Cretton, projected in a loop in the Foundation enclosure, will bring Erni and his wife, Doris, closer to the visitor than ever before. Some of the other par-ticipants are Pietro Sarto, painter and engraver, Nicole Boss-hart, Assistant Manager of the La Chaux-de-Fonds International Watch and Clock Museum, Philippe Visson, the recently deceased iconoclast painter and Léonard Gianadda who needs no further in-troduction and who, for more than thirty years, has been in-volved with the Lucerne painter and sculptor to whom the Founda-tion entrusted the decoration of its pond. As for Hans Erni’s Minotaure, it towers over one of the 13 roundabouts presented to the town of Martigny and this major mythological figure could hardly cause one to forget the sculptures to be admired in the exhibition showcases.