Opening of the Kunstsalon Bern

An early, if not the very first, poster by the Bernese artist Albert Bütschi, who later worked in Paul Otto Althaus’s advertising studio and earned his living as a theater painter and through commissioned works such as this one. While here he depicts the poor Pallas Athena in a relatively harmless manner – who once again has to serve as a prop (though this may, of course, be due to the client, who absolutely wanted a goddess) –, Bütschi made a name for himself in the 1930s with quite modern and innovative posters for consumer products that sharpened the profile of these newly emerging brand-name items.

Fritz Brand, for his part, was initially a painter of only moderate success before opening the first true art gallery in Bern in 1917, with his Kunstsalon situated in a prime location. That same year, he dedicated two solo exhibitions to Ferdinand Hodler; Albert Bütschi was featured in two group exhibitions a year later. However, the Bern gallery scene and art trade really took off with the return from Frankfurt of Le Corbusier’s childhood friend August Klipstein, who moved into the Zytglogge building with Richard Gutekunst in early 1920 and began – also through exhibitions – distributing graphic works. Old masters, but also contemporaries such as Cuno Amiet, Lovis Corinth, Käthe Kollwitz, Emil Nolde, Max Liebermann, and Ferdinand Hodler – the beginnings of today’s Galerie Kornfeld.

maybe of interest as well:

Louis Soutter | Kunsthaus Aarau