La Collection Arthur et Hedy Hahnloser - Un regard partagé sur les artistes

by Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold

As the last embers of Impressionism flickered out amid the early stirrings of the modernist avant garde, the collector couple Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser were on hand to speed French painting's transition into the twentieth century. Between 1905 and 1936, the Hahnlosers assembled a small but breathtaking collection of works by the leaders of the Nabi and Fauve movements, and their precursors Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne and Auguste Renoir. Buying directly at modest prewar rates from artists that were still making their names, such as Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Odilon Redon, Georges Rouault, Aristide Maillol, Félix Vallotton and Edouard Vuillard, the Hahnlosers nursed French painting of the nineteenth century into the twentieth century. During the First World War, their house, the Villa Flora in Wintherthur, Switzerland, provided refuge for many of these artists, and Bonnard and Vallotton in particular developed close friendships with the couple. (Félix Vallotton's critical judgment informed their acquisition of works by Van Gogh and Cézanne, and after the artist's death Hedy Hahnloser wrote Vallotton's biography.) Now, in this volume authored by the art historian Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold, also the couple's granddaughter, the story of this legendary collection is told for the first time. Alongside 250 color plates, "The Hahnloser Collection" offers a chronology detailing the couple's purchases, their travels and their relationships with artists, in an unprecedented insider peek into the world of the Nabis, the Fauves and turn-of-the-century French painting.

Genres: Art

370 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2011

Reviews

[Stamen Parushev · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting book about the art world at the beginning of the 20th century seen through the eyes of thеsе swiss art collectors. The final chapter about the overview of the art collectors' world in that time in Europe and the US is very informative.