Agenda

The exhibition  (I disegni giovanili di Le Corbusier. 1902 1916) is dedicated to the drawings of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, later Le Corbusier (1887-1965), which were created between 1902 and 1916. It shows more than eighty unpublished original drawings from public and private Swiss collections and includes numerous reproductions of drawings from the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris (this foundation owns around 5,000 drawings). He entered the school of art and applied arts (L’Ecole d’art et d’art appliqué à l’industrie ) in his hometown La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1902. 1916 is the year before he moved to France in 1917 and opened an architectural practice in Paris.

The exhibition is arranged chronologically. It begins with his school days, and first architecture, then moves on to his travels and stays in European capitals in Italy, Paris, Berlin, and other German cities, and then to Eastern Europe, Istanbul, and Athens.

The other part shows his return and his stay in La Chaux-de-Fonds (1912-1916). During this time he also devoted himself to painting and drawing. He drew landscapes, animals, portraits, nudes, still lifes, and meticulously precise designs for watches, his first education at school.  But during this time he decided to study architecture, also on the advice of Charles L’Eplattenier (1874-1946), his professor at his school in La Chaux-de-Fonds. (Source and further information: www.arc.usi.ch/en/tam). 

The exhibition (Krieg und Frieden. Bilderchroniken aus der Frühzeit der Alten Eidgenossenschaft) presents a selection of richly illustrated chronicles from the 15th century onwards. Individual Orte and towns and increasingly the Eidgenossenschaft as an alliance of independent Orte/towns show their history, war and peace in the beautifully decorated handwritten chronicles. Some of the most important of these manuscripts are exhibited: a.o. The Tschachtlan Chronicle, the Great Chronicle of the Burgundian Wars (Grosse Burgunderchronik) by Diebold Schilling the Elder (1445-1486), the Schodol Chronicle from Bremgarten, the Zurich Edlibach Chronicle, the first authentic cityscape of Zurich, the earliest manuscript with the history of Arnold Winkelried (the hero of the battle of Sempach in 1386), the first map of the Swiss Confederation and the first printed atlas of Switzerland.

The life of the painter, writer, critic, and enlightened thinker Józef Czapski  (1896 -1993) practically coincides with the whole of the 20^th century. Born in Poland, Czapski grew up in the waning days of the Russian Empire. He took part in both World Wars as a soldier and officer. In the First World War as Polish Cavalry officer, in the Second World War first as a prisoner of war after the Soviet-Union had invaded Poland in September 1939 (he was one of the rare survivors of the Katyn massacre), then in the Polish Armed Forces in the Middle-East against Germany after 22 June 1941. After the war, he settled near Paris. He restarted painting and writing after the war. His early artistic output was destroyed during the war. Through a selection of diaries, books, drawings and paintings the exhibition brings to the fore his creative process and works. The Maison des arts Plexus in Chexbres is featuring another fifty of his works in parallel with the foundation’s show.