Bruno Baeriswyl
Born in 1941.
Died in 1996.
Swiss · Fribourg lyrical and gestural abstraction · material, large scale and monumental art.
Painter, draughtsman, lithographer and creator of monumental works, Bruno Baeriswyl holds an important place in the history of post-war abstraction in Fribourg. The City of Fribourg stresses the breadth of his practice—drawing, painting, lithography, gouache, stained glass and ceramics—and records the early influence of the self-taught painter Ernest Riesemey and the drawing teacher Albin Kolly.
His artistic career began in 1958. He developed a technique that mixed ash with oil paint, making matter, trace and human presence central to his visual language. In 1961 he joined Groupe Mouvement, an association of Fribourg artists seeking to energise the local art scene.
His «Peintures Nougat», followed by the «Poumons» and «Papillons» series, moved his painting towards an organic, gestural abstraction and were followed by an important phase dominated by blue and white.
Institutional recognition came early. Baeriswyl received Swiss Federal Art Scholarships in 1962, 1963 and 1969 and joined the Society of Swiss Painters, Sculptors and Architects in 1964. In 1968 the Museum of Art and History Fribourg presented Bruno Baeriswyl, Ueli Berger and Pierre Chevalley in an exhibition documented by SIK-ISEA.
In 1974 he opened Galerie RB with Michel Ritter at 18 Rue de Lausanne in Fribourg. Until its closure in 1979, the gallery presented their own work and that of contemporary artists including Ian Anüll, Janos Urban, Ueli Berger and Jürg Stäuble; Friart now emphasises its role in the emergence of a new Swiss scene. In 1991 Friart marked Baeriswyl’s fiftieth birthday with an exhibition curated by Michel Ritter and commissioned five large-format tarpaulin works intended for the urban environment.
Baeriswyl’s oeuvre is characterised by a continuity between material experimentation and the breadth of the painterly gesture. In the 1980s he reintroduced ash into his compositions, combining it with white grounds, flowing paint and large formats. Line, circle and spiral became structural elements of a painting in which bodily movement is inscribed directly onto the surface.
The Museum of Art and History Fribourg has highlighted this coherence from the experiments of the 1960s to the late work.
Public collections confirm the significance of his work. The MAHF currently lists 114 objects associated with the artist and has continued to enrich its holdings through acquisitions and gifts, including compositions from the 1960s and the Cycle of ten works on paper made in 1977 for the Swiss National Science Foundation. The Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne also holds his work and presented it in 2022 in Naissance et vie des formes.
Dessins contemporains de la collection. In Fribourg, his monumental terracotta relief of 1988 remains installed in the underground passage at the Manor complex.
From 31 August to 11 November 2001, the Museum of Art and History Fribourg presented a major Baeriswyl retrospective, accompanied by the bilingual catalogue Bruno Baeriswyl 1941–1996, published with Benteli. Friart paid tribute to him at the same time. His market is regularly documented in Swiss auctions at Dobiaschofsky, Piguet and Genève Enchères; a 1963 Composition, oil on canvas, 130 × 150 cm, realised CHF 1,600 at Dobiaschofsky in November 2022.
Comparisons should take medium, dimensions, date, condition and the monumental character of individual works into account.
