Adrien Holy
Born in 1898.
Died in 1978.
Painter, lithographer and decorator, Adrien Holy (30 January 1898, Saint-Imier — 29 December 1978, Geneva) is documented through a Swiss course of training followed by a long stay in Paris. After completing his schooling in Saint-Imier, he studied at the École d’art de La Chaux-de-Fonds and then at the École des beaux-arts de Genève. He arrived in Paris in 1920 and remained there until the beginning of the war, approximately until 1939.
After returning to Switzerland in 1939, he took on institutional responsibilities, notably as exhibition commissioner for the Société des arts de Genève from 1942 to 1946. He later held teaching and administrative positions: professor at the École des beaux-arts de Genève from 1961 to 1966 and president of the Federal Art Commission from 1961 to 1968. On a private level, the notice mentions that he was the father of a son, Jean-Claude (1932–2007).
Holy developed a substantial graphic oeuvre: he produced 22 original lithographs for Le Spleen de Paris (André Gonin edition, Lausanne, 1945) and 26 lithographs for Jean Giono’s Naissance de l’Odyssée (éd. A. et P.
Gonin, Lausanne, 1963). Dated prints are listed in the notices of Geneva collections, including works such as Le canal de Saint-Louis (lithograph, 1960) and Trois garçons (dimensions and format indicated in the sources). His practice also included mural commissions: the choir painting entitled Résurrection in the church of Grandfontaine (Jura), dated 1955–1956, and references to mural decorations in Geneva.
As far as exhibitions are concerned, he showed chiefly in Switzerland, notably at the Musée de l’Athénée in Geneva (1940 and 1965) and the Musée Rath (1968), and was included in the group exhibition “Cinq artistes du XXe siècle” at the Musée de Saint-Imier in 2010. His commitments as commissioner, teacher and commission president testify to a sustained involvement in Swiss art institutions during the second half of the twentieth century.
