Adelheid Fanny Martha Stettler (25 September 1870 – 16 December 1945) was a Swiss painter and engraver. She was one of the founders of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and was co-principal of the school from 1909 until 1945.

Biography

Martha Stettler was born in Bern. Her father, Eugen Stettler, was an architect who gave her early instruction in drawing. In 1893, after studying art in Bern and Geneva, she went to Paris, where she attended the

Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...

. She studied with Luc-Olivier Merson from 1893 to 1898 and became a student of Lucien Simon in 1899. The Académie de la Grande Chaumière, of which Stettler was a co-founder, had its origin in a group of art students. Simon,

Antoine Bourdelle Antoine Bourdelle (30 October 1861 – 1 October 1929), born Émile Antoine Bordelles, was an influential and prolific French sculptor and teacher. He was a student of Auguste Rodin, a teacher of Giacometti and Henri Matisse, and an important fi ...

, and Émile-René Ménard were among the school's early instructors. Stettler and her partner and fellow artist

Alice Dannenberg Alice Dannenberg, (4 April 1861 – 28 June 1948) was an early 20th century French painter of Russian origin who cofounded an art school in Paris, the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Biography Alice Dannenberg was born in Mitau, then part of th ...

were the directors of the school from 1909 to 1945. Stettler began participating in the

Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...

in 1897 and exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, the Salon des Tuileries, and the salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, of which she became an associate member in 1912. She won a medal for work exhibited at the 1910 Exposition universelle in Brussels and contributed a painting to the Swiss pavilion at the 1920 Venice Biennale. Stettler's subjects included many outdoor scenes of children playing in the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Tuileries Garden, as well as interiors, still lifes, landscapes, portraits and animal studies. After 1920, when she moved to the Parisian suburb of Fontenay-aux-Roses, her artistic output declined. Stettler died on 16 December 1945 at Châtillon, Hauts-de-Seine, near Paris. In 1946 the Kunsthalle Bern held a memorial exhibition of her work. Stettler's works are held by the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, the

Museum of Fine Arts Bern The Museum of Fine Arts Bern (German: ''Kunstmuseum Bern''), established in 1879 in Bern, is the museum of fine arts of the Switzerland#Federal City, de facto capital of Switzerland. Its holdings run from the Middle Ages to the present. It houses ...

, the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva, the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, and the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stettler, Martha 1870 births 1945 deaths Artists from Bern 20th-century Swiss women artists 19th-century Swiss women artists