Marcel Donato Brazzola

Marcel Donato Brazzola (Lausanne, 1905–1982) was a Swiss painter and printmaker whose practice combined easel painting with decorative arts. Portraits, landscapes, still lifes and figures were complemented by tapestries, stained glass and mural or ecclesiastical decoration. This diversity of media is a distinctive feature of his career.

Lyon Municipal Archives record his training at the city’s school of fine arts under his full name, Marcel Louis Donato Brazzola, in student register 2210W/19, page 202, which also documents Lausanne and 27 November 1905 as his birthplace and birth date; the INHA record identifies him as a son of the architect Louis Albert Brazzola, distinguishing Marcel’s career in the visual arts from his father’s architectural practice.

The figurative painting of his early years gave way to an abstract approach informed by his Christian faith. Colour and the organisation of forms became central to an oeuvre extending beyond the easel picture. His work in tapestry and stained glass connected this investigation with the relationship between image, material and architectural space.

In Prilly he designed the stained-glass wall of the Lady Chapel in the Bon Pasteur church, designed by Jean Antonetti and inaugurated in 1956. Photographic documentation of the church distinguishes this dalle-de-verre work from Max Ingrand’s windows in the nave. The work, preserved in its architectural setting, offers a concrete reference for this strand of his practice.

The poster “Quel régal à la taverne du Continental”, dated around 1930, reveals another aspect of his work. This 101 × 65 cm stone lithograph, printed by Auguste Marsens in Lausanne, depicts a cat beside a fondue pot. Its familiar subject and advertising design contrast with his later religious commissions and illuminate the range of his graphic practice.