WILHELM GIMMI (1886 - 1965)
A SEATED FEMALE FIGURE (1911)
Signed l.r. W Gimmi
Brush & ink on cream wove paper
26.5 × 21 cm
PROVENANCE
Galerie Guido Marbach, Zurich
From whom acquired by the previous owner, Private collection, Switzerland
EXHIBITED
Munich, Der Blaue Reiter. Schwarz–Weiss, February – April 1912, no. 24 ("Kauerndes Mädchen")
Zurich, Der Moderne Bund, Kunsthaus Zürich, 7 – 31 July 1912, no. 48
LITERATURE
Der Blaue Reiter. Schwarz–Weiss (exhib. cat.), Munich, 1912, no. 24
Der Moderne Bund (exhib. cat.), Zurich, 1912, p. 4, no. 48
Wilhelm Gimmi was born in Zürich and trained at first to become a primary school teacher. A scholarship from the Académie Julien enabled him to pursue a career as an artist, and he attended the Académie from 1908 to 1911. Upon his return to Switzerland, Gimmi joined the artists’ association Der Moderne Bund, exhibiting in their shows between 1911 to 1913. Our work dates from this important period, featuring in two significant shows in 1912.
The Bund had been founded by Hans Arp, Walter Helbig, Oscar Lüthy, Gimmi, Paul Klee, Albert Pfister, Hermann Huber and Reinhold Kündig. The association held similar goals to their contemporaries, the Münchner Blauen Reiter, Kandinsky and Franz Marc’s expressionist group which had been formed just months earlier with the aim of making avant-garde art more accessible and better-known to the public. The Bund held travelling exhibitions in Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Frank and Kiel in the Summer of 1914, and was the first association of its sort in Switzerland. Their first show, held in Lucerne in December 1917, included showings from Picasso, Gauguin, Cuno Amiet, Ferdinand Hodler, Kandinsky and Matisse, cementing their position as an important part of the nascent international avant-garde at the time.
Gimmi returned to Paris in 1911, where he would remain until 1940. An exhibition of his works was held at Berthe Weill’s gallery in 1919, and the following year saw him elected to the Salon d’Automne and brought with it further exhibitions in Paris.
Gimmi continued to work until the next War compelled him to leave Paris for Switzerland, and he settled in Chezbres. His reputation as one of the foremost Swiss artists of the time meant that he participated in a number of major shows there, and in 1956 and 1957, he was celebrated with a retrospective at the Kunsthaus Zürich.
Several years after his death, the Fondation Wilhelm Gimmi was created by his widow, Suzanne Gimmi, to preserve his collection and promote his work. The Fondation is based at the Musée Jenisch Veney, to which his collection was donated in 1991.