An outsider and unstoppable men
The Swiss entrepreneur, philanthropist and film pioneer François-Henri Lavanchy-Clarke is having a small exhibition at the Museum Tinguely until the month of January. How can we define this undefinable man, from the war, his entrepreneurship and his love for photography and the new technique of photography in the 20th century.
The exhibition of the Museum Tinguely is presented thematically and chronologically, and everything started out with the person itself, François-Henri Lavanchy-Clarke and his family. Thus, Lavanchy was born on January 4, 1848 in Morges (near Lausanne), and after a classic childhood he got enrolled into the Swiss Red Cross during the Franco-Prussian War as a nurse.
After his first human and real experience, Lavanchy married the Englishwoman Jenny Elisabeth. The same year, he will come back to his humanity works an advocated for the needs of the visual impaired and founded a vocational school in Paris in 1881.
In 1892, he came back to Lausanne to continue his advocation of visually impaired people, even more after his love for the studies of moving images in 1889, just before the first film of the brother Lumière on March 5, 1895.
This prolific love for the studies of moving images will lead him to be one of the four founders of the Société Française du Phonoscope, with his father-in-law, William Gibbs Clarke. This society will aim to develop the work of Georges Demenÿ, a French photographer born in 1850, who was the inventer of the chronophotograph camera called Biographer, a device taking several photographs on the flexible film invented in 1888 by John Carbutt.
Later in his life, he will work for the Frères Lumières and produced a film of the entrepreneur Achilles Lotz on September 1896. This film will be shot by Constant Girel on the Mittlere Rheinbrücke and shown to the public in Basel, together with other Lumière films, in the Stadtcasino.
Then, his life turns into entrepreneurship. In 1898, he became the director of the Helvetia soap factory founded in Olten, which was renamed the Sunlight soap factory in 1909. But he left it in 1910.
13 years in the company was enough, he wanted to go back to his root, his love for photography and the period of the National Exhibition in Geneva in 1896.
In 1896, Lavanchy-Clarke was a Lumière concessionaire and organized the first cinematographic presentations in Switzerland during the National Exhibition in Geneva in 1896.
At that time, the National Exhibition was a big deal for Switzerland. The country has been only a country since 1848, and this exhibition will help to respond to identity issues, comparisons to European country and the development of innovations made in Switzerland.
Thus, the show was structured in five divisions: Fine Arts, Industry, Science, Machinery and Electricity, and Agriculture. Beside the classical fair, many events took place at the Parc de Plaisance and the pavillon of Fine Arts. One of these events was a park, where you can see a aptive balloon, a black ("negro") village, Javanese dancers and even an Eiffel Tower with pinnacles.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Museum Tinguely
Date: 19.10.2022 – 29.1.2023
Curators: Dr. Hansmartin Siegrist, David Bucheli, Gianna Heim, Reinhard Mans, Andres Pardey & Andreas Weber
Ticket: Available on the website of the Museum Tinguely OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Museum Tinguely
Museum Tinguely
Paul Sacher-Anlage 2 - P.O Box 3255
CH-4002 Basel
Phone: +41 61 681 93 20
Mail: basel.infostinguely@roche.com