Alois Carigiet

Born in Trun in 1902, where he also died in 1985, Alois Carigiet developed a body of work that brings together painting, drawing, illustration and graphic design. His imagery remains deeply connected to Graubünden, while his career was also shaped by Zurich’s cultural life.

Trained as a decorative painter in Chur, he moved to Zurich in 1923 and established an independent practice in 1927. His posters for fashion and tourism combine visual impact with humour. A co-founder of Cabaret Cornichon, he also designed its sets and costumes.

These varied activities nourished an art as attentive to the presence of figures as to the organisation of space.

His move to Platenga in Graubünden in 1939 marked a decisive stage. Landscapes, villages, animals and human figures became subjects in a practice encompassing drawings, watercolours, lithographs and oil paintings. Strong colours and the structuring role of line recall his background in graphic design: the eye can follow the contours before lingering over the relationships between colours.

Published in 1945, A Bell for Ursli, created with the writer Selina Chönz, introduced his imaginative world to a wide audience. This success accompanied an artistic exploration that continued beyond the book. At Zurich’s Muraltengut, Allegro con Spirito (1951), a large oil-on-canvas composition, presents a terrace animated by musicians, circus performers and animals.

Looking at Carigiet’s work thus means discovering exchanges between different scales: the illustrated page, the painting and the monumental interior decoration. Attention to line and colour reveals what connects these expressions of a shared artistic sensibility.