Leo Deck
Born in 1908.
Died in 1997.
The lakes, their shores and the life that animates them offer an entry point into the work of Leo Deck. Born in Bern in 1908 and deceased in the same city in 1997, this Swiss painter explores an inhabited landscape in which waters, trees and human figures provide constantly renewed motifs.
His career included training at the Grande Chaumière in Paris. In 1945, he took part in the exhibition «Junge Berner Künstler» at the Kunsthalle Bern. Another stage is directly documented by the institution’s archives: from 11 September to 17 October 1954, it presented an exhibition bringing together Varlin and Leo Deck.
This event situated his work within Bern’s post-war artistic life.
The catalogued works demonstrate the importance of lake regions, particularly around Lakes Wohlen, Murten and Brienz. The range of subjects also extends to landscapes along the Aare, Parisian scenes, riders and flowers. This diversity allows several aspects of a single way of seeing to emerge—one attentive both to the expanse of a site and to the presences that inhabit it.
Oil painting appears alongside watercolour and gouache. The landscapes, beach scenes and equestrian outings thus offer an opportunity to compare different ways of constructing space, suggesting movement and bringing colour into play. The succession of planes, the lines of the shores and the silhouettes become accessible points of observation.
To approach Deck’s work, one can begin by recognising the motif, then linger over its pictorial organisation. How does a shore lead the eye? What space does the painter leave for the water or the sky?
This reading invites us to discover the landscapes as compositions, beyond their mere geographical identification.
