The history of a man
becoming a lasting institution
Born on July 16 1921, Ernst Beyeler will be the founder of the Fondation Beyeler almost 80 years later. After a classic childhood with his parent in Basel, he started his studies in business, economic and art history at the University of Basel.
During the same studies, he became the assistant of Oskar Schloss, the director of the antiquarian bookshop "La Librairie du Château d'Art" situated on Bäumleingasse 9, in Basel.
At the start, his student job at the "library du château d'art" was not supposed to be permanent. It was more by chance that everything happened before the start of the Second World War. Even more when the director of the bookshop, Oskar Schloss was robbed by the Nazis and he had to flee to Switzerland where he made his business as a small Antiquarian Shop.
After two years of works, the Galerie "Ernst Beyeler" was open, and his career start out. A few years later, the gallery named was change to "Galerie Beyeler" and they started to make beautiful exhibition catalog for every exhibition of the gallery.
Setting standards in his collection
After the transformation from a bookshop to an art gallery, the couple had the chance to be helped by the art historian and museum expert Georg Schmidt to present their first artworks and exhibitions, mostly focus on German Art. Thus, artist like Käthe Kollwitz, Edvard Munch, Alexej von Jawlensky, Ernst Ludwig Kircher and numerous French artist from the 19th and 20th centuries were represented.
All of those choices will be shows in the first exhibition "Bilder des 20. Jahrhunderts" and "Tableaux français", presented in 1952. Beside archival photographs, the couple made the decision to create a catalogue for each exhibition, which gave us some important information about the artwork they showed and the selection for their exhibition.
The goal of this exhibition was to make Ernst Beyeler one of the leading players in the art world with artworks of endless quality. In the 50s, the galleries expanded his vision with the inclusion of French painters such as Monet, Seurat, Signac, etc.
In the 50s, he also settled his first rules, for very work sold, two new ones were bought. And as he travelled extensively in Europe (Munich, Stuttgart, Cologne, Paris and London), his wife, Hildy oversaw the finances and managed the small staff of the Beyeler Galerie.
At the end of the 50s, the gallery became an important destination for the collectors of the regions, but also American who made a detour from Paris to the gallery's promising summer exhibitions like "Maîtres de l'art moderne (1955-1958)".
Go big OR go home
Between the creations of Art Basel and their work in the Galerie Beyeler, the couple assembled over the years a collection of fine works of classical modernism: Matisse, Rothko, Brancusi, Monet, Seurat, etc. Thus, the collection will be given to the Fondation Beyeler (which they created in 1982) and they will be shown to the public for the first time in 1989 at the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid.
With this foundation and the recognition of the collection, Ernst Beyeler was looking for a nice place to put his museum in his hometown of Riehen. The place will be the situated next to the Villa Brewer and the couple commissioned Renzo Piano for the construction of the Fondation Beyeler museum, which opened on October 18, 1997.
Ernst Beyeler acted as director of the Fondation Beyeler until 2003.
And now ?
This year, the Fondation Beyeler celebrates its 25th anniversary with three wonderful exhibitions. The year started out with the retrospective of the American artist Georgia O'Keeffe, then the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian developed his abstract shapes in the museum during the summer months. Finally, the collection is presented until January with two wonderful installations, one of Doris Salcedos and the sculptures of Duane Hanson.
Looking ahead
For a year, the installation Palimpsest by the Colombian artist Doris Salcedo is presented in the biggest room of the museum. This 400 square meters installation addresses the impact of violence, the current fate of refugees and migrants who have drowned in the sea over the past twenty years to emigrate into a new country, in search of a better and more stable life.
After years of research, the Colombian artist counted that 15,600 refugees and migrants lost their lives from 2013 until 2017. During those five years, the artist followed the situation via the press, and she got in contact with survivors and relatives of the victims. While the artist is unable to put all of those names on a single installation, she decided to select 300 names (In the Fondation Beyeler installation, only 171 names are displayed.).
Beside the installation in itself, which is an engineering miracle between the motors, the use of water (Maybe salted water? Linking it to the sea or the ocean), the title "Palimpsest" derives from the ancient Greek word “palimpsest”, which refers to manuscript pages that were inscribed, cleaned and rewritten several times.
This installation will be part of the large-scale exhibition of the artist in the summer 2023.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Fondation Beyeler
Date: 30.10.2022 – 8.1.2023
Curators: Raphaël Bouvier
Ticket: Available online OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Fondation Beyeler
Baselstrasse 101
CH-4125 Riehen/Basel
Phone: +41 61 645 97 00
Fax: +41 61 645 97 19
Mail: info@fondationbeyeler.ch