Swiss Review 4/2019

Swiss Review / July 2019 / No.4 28 Images Monumental, compelling formats Franz Gertsch’s photorealist paintings count among the masterpieces of his work. To mark the occasion of the Swiss artist’s 89th birthday, the Museum Franz Gertsch in Burgdorf, in the canton of Berne has opened an extension this year. The “Four Seasons” group of works now has a custom-made space in which to exert its magnetic pull on a permanent basis. Knowing that there is a museum dedicated to him has inspired Gertsch to not only think in terms of exhibition spaces but also to create entire groups of works to fill them since the late 1990s. Franz Gertsch began the masterful “Four Seasons” cycle in 2007 with the painting “Autumn”, and completed it in 2011 with “Spring”. Gertsch’s portraits of women also number among the classics in his photorealist works. “Johanna I” (1983/84) is the penultimate in a series of women’s portraits that followed a self-portrait of the artist in the 1980s. Gertsch’s large-format woodcuts, which he printed on handmade Japanese paper, are also on display in Burgdorf. THEODORA PETER Museum Franz Gertsch, Platanenstrasse 3, 3400 Burgdorf www.museum-franzgertsch.ch © Museum Franz Gertsch, Photography: Bernhard Strahm, Gerlafingen 2019