Sophie Taeuber-Arp is one of the most important representatives of Classical Modernism and is considered a pioneer of abstraction.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp gehört zu einer der bedeutendsten Vertreterinnen der Klassischen Moderne und gilt als Vorreiterin der Abstraktion.

Alberto Giacometti was in Geneva during the Second World War. In 1945 he returned to Paris. His old studio was still intact and he could have simply continued working.

Secluded, Giorgio Morandi lived and worked in Bologna. He specialized in still lifes on small format canvases.

The Alsace artist, Hans Arp, had already played a central role as artist and poet in the Dadaist movements in Zürich and Paris. Humour and irony also characterised his later work, especially the reliefs.

In 1926 Alexander Calder left America and went to Paris where the most important new artists of the time were working. His encounter with the Dutchman Piet Mondrian was groundbreaking.

The Italian Giorgio de Chirico painted his mysterious pictures in Paris before the First World War. He called his art “Pittura metafisica,” a style that had great influence on European painting.

The presence of Cubist paintings by Picasso and Braque was exceptionally strong even before the First World War. The Spaniard Juan Gris discovered the foundations of his work within them, but nevertheless developed his own, quite individual style, which led him to a strictly classical pictorial design.…

In the years preceding the First World War Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso developed cubism.This was a new type of portrayal of reality.

Fernand Léger was not a painter of finely nuanced colour tones like Robert Delaunay, and he also wasn’t a strict Cubist like Braque and Picasso. Léger was a painter of expressive contrasts: colour, line and form come into direct conflict in his pictures.

Robert Delaunay painted numerous views of Paris. The view of the city through a window is the subject of a series of pictures that he painted in 1912.

Alongside Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard became the leading painter of intimate interiors at the beginning of the 20th century. They had a mutual interest in the refined use of colour in the rooms.

All his life Edouard Vuillard’s studio was in the apartment that he shared with his mother. Life and painting were closely related and his choice of models was no exception.

In around 1890 some young painters came together under the name of the “Nabis,” among them were, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Félix Vallotton and Edouard Vuillard. They sought new ideas for the art of painting.

Odilon Redon was one of the great loners among French painters. His path was set apart from Realism and Impressionism.

In around 1900 the sculpture underwent profound changes; both material and space were treated in a new way. One of the great innovators in this was Auguste Rodin.

Camille Pissarro was one of the pioneering Impressionist painters.

Alberto Giacometti hatte die Zeit des Zweiten Weltkriegs in Genf verbracht. 1945 kehrte er nach Paris zurück.

Giorgio Morandi lebte und arbeitete zurückgezogen in Bologna. Er malte hauptsächlich Stilleben auf kleinformatigen Leinwänden.

Der Elsässer Hans Arp spielte als Künstler und Dichter schon bei den Dadaisten in Zürich und Paris eine zentrale Rolle. Humor und Ironie prägten auch sein späteres Werk, etwa die Reliefe.

Alexander Calder war 1926 aus Amerika nach Paris gekommen, wo damals die wichtigsten neuen Künstler tätig waren. Wegweisend wurde die Begegnung mit dem Holländer Piet Mondrian.

Vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg hatte der Italiener Giorgio de Chirico in Paris seine geheimnisvollen Bilder gemalt. “Pittura metafisica” nannte er seine Kunst, die grossen Einfluss auf die europäische Malerei gewann.

Die Ausstrahlung der kubistischen Bilder von Picasso und Braque war schon vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg ungemein stark. Der Spanier Juan Gris fand darin die Grundlage für sein Werk; allerdings ging er einen ganz eigenen Weg.

In den Jahren vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg hatte Georges Braque zusammen mit Pablo Picasso die kubistische Malerei entwickelt.

Fernand Léger war nicht der Maler fein nuancierter Farbklänge wie Robert Delaunay, er war auch kein strenger Kubist wie Braque und Picasso. Léger war der Maler der expressiven Kontraste.