Walmar Wladimir Schwab was born in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

on 1 September 1902 and died in

Onex, Switzerland Onex (; frp, Ônèx) is a municipality in the canton of Geneva in Switzerland. History Onex is first mentioned in 1292 as ''Onay''. It became an independent municipality in 1851 when the municipality of Onex-Confignon split into the two munic ...

, on 19 August 2000. A painter and print-maker in Paris during the 1920s, he later abandoned this for a career in chemistry and took Swiss nationality.

Artistic career

During his years in Paris, Schwab produced a series of pictures in the abstract geometrical style between the late 1920s and early 1930s. Between November–December 1929 he exhibited at the ''Galerie

der Sturm ''Der Sturm'' () was a German List of avant-garde magazines, avant-garde art and literary magazine founded by Herwarth Walden, covering Expressionism, Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, among other artistic movements. It was published between 1910 an ...

'' in Berlin. He was also approached by Theo van Doesburg to sign the

Art Concret Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

manifesto but pleaded that he was constitutionally against joining artistic groups; however, he allowed a print of one of his works to appear in their art review in April 1930. Long after his abandonment of art, Schwab was rediscovered in 1975, by which time geometrical abstraction had been accepted and was regarded as important. It was then that the Kunsthaus Zürich devoted an exhibition to 40 of his works, accompanied by a nine-page brochure, and thereafter paintings and posters of his began to appear in art showrooms.

Later life

Schwab did not leave Paris for several more years after giving up painting and was described as a “theatre personality” at the time he began a twenty-year relationship with the Swiss Valentine de Kerven (1901-1991). Together they joined the Revolutionary Association of Artists and trained to fight against General Franco during the

Spanish civil war The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

, until Schwab withdrew. In 1939 they crossed the

Sahara , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

on her motorbike, then settled in Switzerland during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Until then Valentine had refused to marry Schwab, but Swiss law obliged

cohabiters Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not married, usually couples, live together. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become increas ...

to wed at the time. In 1954 they made another difficult journey, driving overland to India via Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan in a

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German Automotive industry, motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a ...

, in order to visit

Jiddu Krishnamurti Jiddu Krishnamurti (; 11 May 1895 – 17 February 1986) was a philosopher, speaker and writer. In his early life, he was groomed to be the new World Teacher, an advanced spiritual position in the theosophical tradition, but later rejected thi ...

. Not long afterwards Schwab started a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old and Valentine divorced him. During the 1940s Schwab took a doctorate in

Chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

at the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centu ...

. His dissertation on anthraquinone pigments in lesser fungi (''Recherches sur les pigments anthraquinoniques des champignons inférieurs'') was published by the university in 1946. Other publications at that period appeared in ''Acta Tropica'' and included consideration of

ricin Ricin ( ) is a lectin (a carbohydrate-binding protein) and a highly potent toxin produced in the seeds of the castor oil plant, ''Ricinus communis''. The median lethal dose (LD50) of ricin for mice is around 22 micrograms per kilogram of body ...

production in the Sahara and

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the p ...

growing in the

Comoro Islands The Comoro Islands or Comoros ( Shikomori ''Komori''; ar, جزر القمر , ''Juzur al-qamar''; french: Les Comores) form an archipelago of volcanic islands situated off the southeastern coast of Africa, to the east of Mozambique and northw ...

, both of which he had visited.Swiss bibliography
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwab, Walmar Wladimir 1902 births 2000 deaths Abstract artists Swiss chemists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France