Jean-Édouard de Castella
Born in 1881.
Died in 1966.
He trained in Fribourg, then in Munich and Paris; reference notices describe him as a painter and draughtsman. His work as a stained-glass artist is particularly well documented. Following an initial commission for the church of Heitenried, he worked with Fribourg stained-glass workshops and received religious and secular commissions.
The surviving cartoons preserved and studied by Vitrosearch make it possible to trace the conception of cycles intended in particular for the churches of Semsales and Saint-Pierre in Fribourg. These files also reveal a collective practice: the artist designed the compositions, while the workshop was responsible for their execution in glass. The Semsales collaboration with the architect Fernand Dumas and Gino Severini was marked by disagreements, and part of the commission was withdrawn from him; this episode cautions against presenting the project as an entirely solitary or consensual undertaking.
Castella taught drawing in Fribourg schools from 1923 to 1927. From 1932 to 1936, he ran an art salon in Fribourg devoted mainly to Swiss artists. His career thus connects stained glass with public and religious commissions, teaching, and local artistic life; the surviving cartoons offer insight into the design work that precedes execution in glass.