Jean André Evard (1 June 1876 – 20 July 1972) was a Swiss

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and

drafter A drafter (also draughtsman / draughtswoman in British and Commonwealth English, draftsman / draftswoman or drafting technician in American and Canadian English) is an engineering technician who makes detailed technical drawings or plans for m ...

. His special significance lies in the field of

constructive art Constructivism is an early twentieth-century art movement founded in 1915 by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko. Abstract and austere, constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space. The movement rejected deco ...

. He is counted among the first artists who did not work figuratively. In the course of his life he produced hundreds of

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

s, a large number of

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...

s as well as approximately 2000 to 3000

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

and

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache h ...

paintings.

Biography

André Evard was born on 1 June 1876 in Renan (

Bernese Jura Bernese Jura (french: Jura bernois, ) is the name for the French-speaking area of the Swiss canton of Bern, and from 2010 one of ten administrative divisions of the canton. Comprising the three French-speaking districts in the northern part of the ...

) as the son of Jean-Félix Evard (1849-1879) and Marie Sagne (1852-1921). After the early death of his father, he and his mother moved to

La Chaux-de-Fonds La Chaux-de-Fonds () is a Swiss city in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura mountains at an altitude of 1000 m, a few kilometers south of the French border. After Geneva, Lausanne and Fribourg, it is the fourth largest city loc ...

, where Marie Evard ran a pastry shop. Initially working as a pastry chef, André received an

inheritance Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, Title (property), titles, debts, entitlements, Privilege (law), privileges, rights, and Law of obligations, obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ ...

which enabled him to study art. He studied at the École d'Art in La Chaux-de-Fonds from 1905 to 1909 and attended courses in

decorative art ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...

with

Charles L'Eplattenier Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

, a former student of

Ferdinand Hodler Ferdinand Hodler (March 14, 1853 – May 19, 1918) was one of the best-known Swiss painters of the nineteenth century. His early works were portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings in a realistic style. Later, he adopted a personal form of ...

. Through L'Eplattenier, La Chaux-de-Fonds became a centre of

Art nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

in Switzerland. He was particularly interested in the nature of the Jura and encouraged his pupils to " ..study the nature of the Jura - from the fir trees to the tectonics of the limestone cliffs - analyse their regularities and translate them into abstract ornaments" (in German: } Here André Evard distinguished himself above all in the goldsmith and enamel art with the finest works, which is why the art critic Jean-Marie Nussbaum labeled him a ''jeweller of painting''. At that time Evard was artistically still strongly influenced by

. Among his friends at university were

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

, Conrad Meili and Léon Perrin, with whom he decorated and painted private villas. With Le Corbusier, for example, he furnished the interiors of the

Villa Fallet Villa Fallet is a traditional chalet located in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland designed and built by the eighteen-year-old Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887–1965), who later became better known as Le Corbusier. Jeanneret was teaching himself ...

. Around 1900 Evard got in touch with Paul Pettavel, a priest in La Chaux-de-Fonds who published a free Sunday newspaper, "La Feuille du dimanche", in which he propagated social reformist and pacifist ideas. The weekly also focused on the fight against alcoholism. La Chaux-de-Fonds was then a centre of international pacifism. Evard became a member of the Christian Youth Association of the pastor and administered the publication of the weekly newspaper for almost 30 years. Through his activities at Pettavel he got to know the painter , whose daughter he married in 1928. Around the year 1907 Evard shifted his artistic interest almost completely to painting and drawing and in the same year undertook a longer study trip to Italy, where he studied the

old Master In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...

s. Above all, small-format portraits and atmospheric landscapes were the main characteristics of the works of the following years. His first

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

s were made in 1908, but they met with strong rejection. The participation in various exhibitions, such as 1909 in Munich or 1914 in Neuchâtel, did not lead to any success either. The result was a deep creative crisis and a complete reorientation. Thus from 1913 he undertook the first non-objective,

cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

and

constructive Although the general English usage of the adjective constructive is "helping to develop or improve something; helpful to someone, instead of upsetting and negative," as in the phrase "constructive criticism," in legal writing ''constructive'' has ...

attempts, which were ultimately to place him in the front rank not only of the Swiss avant-garde. More and more he devoted himself to the principle of the series (an example of this is the painting series ''Roses''), because he was fascinated by the variations of a basic motif and its color variations. From 1912 until the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, André Evard used the name "Louvrier" as a pseudonym. After the death of his mother longer stays in Paris followed from 1923 to 1927, during which he again dealt intensively with the old and modern masters and got to know artists like

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...

and

Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (, 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch artist, who practiced painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He was married to artist, pianist and choreographer Nelly ...

, who tried in vain to win him for cooperation in the '

De Stijl ''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body o ...

' group In addition, he came into contact with

African sculpture Most African sculpture was historically in wood and other organic materials that have not survived from earlier than at most a few centuries ago; older pottery figures are found from a number of areas. Traditional African masks, Masks are importa ...

for the first time, which increased his interest in non-European art. Since then he has attached particular importance to

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

– for him the ''aristocrat of colors''. Some of his abstract, cubist and constructive works created during these Parisian years were exhibited at the Salon des Indépendents and the

Salon d'Automne The Salon d'Automne (; en, Autumn Salon), or Société du Salon d'automne, is an art exhibition held annually in Paris, France. Since 2011, it is held on the Champs-Élysées, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, in mid-October. The ...

. Although André Evard was now at the center of the

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

, he responded to requests from the art trade by rejecting them and almost never gave his works to galleries or collectors. He sought recognition almost exclusively in the context of official institutions. Back in La Chaux de Fonds, he married Milca Reguin, the daughter of the painter Louis Reguin in 1928. The following year was a huge one: Due to the

Wall Street Crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...

he lost his entire fortune. Until the end of his life he now lived in modest circumstances. It was no longer possible to travel to Paris. His sphere of influence was thus limited to his homeland, which he had never left since. Moreover, his avant-garde works were not in demand among conservative audiences. At first he resignedly stopped his production, but from 1932 he changed his style in order to increase the chances of a sale. In addition to other Concrete works, a multitude of traditionally figurative, almost deserted landscapes and still lifes were created, characterized by strong colors: "La Chaux-de-Fonds lies at around 1,000 metres above sea level and is therefore one of the highest cities in Europe. From this altitude, Evard was particularly fascinated by the spectacle of light during sunrises and sunsets. The steep valley flanks (Côtes du Doubs) are densely wooded and partly crossed by rocky outcrops" (in German: } Evard participated in various exhibitions, such as the 1936 exhibition 'Zeitprobleme in der Schweizer Malerei und Plastik' at the

Kunsthaus Zürich The Kunsthaus Zürich is in terms of area the biggest art museum of Switzerland and houses one of the most important art collections in Switzerland, assembled over the years by the local art association called '. The collection spans from the Medi ...

. In 1937 he also joined the newly founded group

Allianz Allianz ( , ) is a German multinational financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Its core businesses are insurance and asset management. The company is one of the world's largest insurers and financial services groups. The ...

as member no. 10, which offered a platform to avant-garde artists and in which important representatives of abstract and surrealist art participated. But here, too, he did not make use of the advantages of the group, which also met with little public interest in his home country. Since official Swiss art was based on traditional tastes, it became almost impossible to obtain a public contract. Thus Evard slowly fell into oblivion and increasingly withdrew into a self-imposed isolation. His art constantly changed back and forth between a figurative and an abstract style. The numerous landscapes and still lifes were characterized by strong colors, in which his

pantheistic Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ex ...

vision of nature is expressed. Many sunsets and colourful Jura landscapes were created. Shortly before his death in 1972, he completed his last work – a triumphantly luminous cross. André Evard was largely forgotten until today. In 1978 the collector Jürgen A. Messmer acquired a large part of the works of André Evard's estate and has since made them known through exhibitions in the

Kunsthalle Messmer The Kunsthalle Messmer is a museum in Riegel am Kaiserstuhl in the rooms of the former . Art of the 20th and 21st centuries is shown in temporary exhibitions on around 900 m2 of exhibition space. The museum includes an 850 m2 sculpture ...

. Since 2007, the Kunsthalle has been awarding the ''International André Evard Award'' for Concrete and Constructivist Contemporary Art every 2-3 years, which is endowed with 10,000 euros.

Artistic work

After completing his studies, Evard initially painted in the French tradition of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Influences of Salon paintings,

impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

and

symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: Arts * Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism ** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries ** Russian sy ...

were mixed with influences

van Goghs ''Van Goghs'' (russian: Ван Гоги, Van Gogi) is a 2018 Russian drama film directed and written by Sergey Livnev. It stars Aleksei Serebryakov and Daniel Olbrychski. Plot The film tells about a lonely artist Mark, returning to Latvia ...

, but also with those of Far Eastern art, whereby the various artist's styles seemed to merge into a very individual style. In his color compositions, Evard knew how to subject completely opposite colors to absolute harmony. Extreme freedom of feeling, great variety of moods, subtle color modulations and chromatic vivacity characterise his works, as Evard wants to give color its 'spirit'. Step by step he finally detaches himself from the given ornamental or symbolizing forms and reaches the structure via the ornament. In works such as ''Crocus'', ''Roses'', ''Roses noir'', ''Chardon'', ''Nocturne'' or ''Pyramid'', for example, the emphasis is on a limited three-dimensional, physical or spatially geometric drawing. The paintings of the 20s are reminiscent of

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...

and

. Again, however, he seems to unite all influences in his very own style. The series of works called ''Roses'' are a prime example of the development from representational to constructive painting. Thus, in 1917, the ''Trois roses'', the first version of the motif was created, to which he would devote himself for over a decade. For the first time, the tendency towards variation and an almost obsessive way of working becomes visible: sometimes he barely noticeably changes the colours, sometimes he changes the whole composition. The increasing abstraction of the natural object takes place here in an exemplary manner - from

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...

. While a certain trueness to color is important to him at first, he gradually abandons it, separates himself from the colors and inserts vertical and horizontal lines into the picture, so that the depicted object can almost be seen as a pure geometric form. Evard reduces the representationalism through spatial and surface tensions - but achieves emotional values such as warm and cold, light and dark, playful and harsh through the choice of color. André Evard's work is difficult to classify in the categories of art history. He was not committed to any particular style, but rather reverted to the past, mixed styles and invented something new.

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

, and geometric-constructive abstractions all define his work. While in Paris he was part of the

, he later repeatedly withdrew to representational painting. On the one hand, the play of forms and colors leads to highly expressive representational landscapes, on the other hand, fascinating still lifes emerge from the clear reduction, which show unusual color combinations and completely new object-space relationships. In doing so, he always exposed himself to the risk of a stylistic break, which, however, is the special feature of his artistic oeuvre. He painted abstract when hardly anyone painted abstract and returned to representational painting when

Abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...

dominated.

Works Online

* ''Decorative project for living room''. La Chaux-de-Fonds 1908. * '' Analysis of a painting: André Evard''

Exhibitions (selection)

* 1936: ''Zeitprobleme in der Schweizer Malerei und Plastik (Temporal problems in Swiss painting and sculpture)'',

, Zürich, Switzerland *1981: ''1936 – eine Konfrontation (1936 – A Confrontation)'', Kunsthaus Aarau, Switzerland * 1981: ''Konstruktive Kunst in der Schweiz 1915-1945 (Constructive Art in Switzerland 1915-1945)'', Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland * 1993: Kunstmuseum Olten Olten, Switzerland * 2005: ''André Evard. De l´Art nouveau a l´abstraction (André Evard. From Art Nouveau to abstraction)'', Musée des beaux-arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland * 2009: ''Hommage an André Evard'',

Riegel am Kaiserstuhl Riegel am Kaiserstuhl (Latin ''Rigola'') is a municipality in the district of Emmendingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It lies 8 km northwest of Emmendingen, and is accessed by the motorway A5 (Karlsruhe - Basel , french: link=no, ...

, Germany * 2012: ''Le Corbusier & André Evard. Vom Jugendstil zur Moderne (Le Corbusier & André Evard. From Art Nouveau to Modernism''), Kunsthalle Messmer, Riegel am Kaiserstuhl, Germany * 2016 ''André Evard: Der Farbe ihren Geist geben. 1876 bis 1972 (André Evard: Giving color its spirit. 1876 to 1972)'', Galerie Michael Schultz, Berlin, Germany * 2018 ''André Evard: Farben der Natur (André Evard: Colors of nature''), Galerie Messmer, Riegel am Kaiserstuhl, Germany * 2019 ''10 Jahre Kunsthalle Messmer: Ein Leben für die Kunst (10 Years Kunsthalle Messmer: A Life for Art)'', Kunsthalle Messmer, Riegel am Kaiserstuhl, Germany

External links

André Evard at artfacts.net

André Evard at kunstaspekte.art
*

References