He was famous for his monumental and hyper-realistic images, such as those of US rock icon Patti Smith. Later, nature was his main source of inspiration. Franz Gertsch was 92 years old.
“Gertsch passed away peacefully on December 21, 2022 at the advanced age of 92,” says a statement on the website of the museum, which he opened in 1999 in Burgdorf, Switzerland. According to the Swiss broadcaster SRF about the famous painter, he worked in his always tidy studio until the very end. In a room that was surprisingly small compared to his monumental pictures.
Gertsch: Love  ;for painting stronger than for music
Franz Gertsch was born on March 8, 1930 in the canton of Bern. His father was a singer, that inspired him. He played the piano as a child and aspired to a career as a musician. But the love of painting was ultimately stronger – however, he saw a clear parallel between art and playing the piano. Nature is the code that he has to interpret as a painter, “comparable to the notes that a piano player has”.
An early Gertsch from 1971: “Aelggi Alp”
Gertsch had his first successes with the paintings of children playing on the beach, which he painted at a Sinti and Roma festival in Saintes in southern France -Maries-de-la-Mer brought to the canvas.
A painter with a penchant for the monumental
At the documenta in Kassel in 1972, he caused a sensation with his gigantic work “Medici”: In the picture, five young people lined up next to each other leaning against a barrier on a gigantic four by six meters. Gertsch once said he wanted to capture life.
More group and individual portraits followed, including a complete series of rock icon Patti Smith. Gertsch large-format hyper-realistic works depicted people in everyday, unspectacular scenes – often in fluorescent colors. Based on his own photo templates, he brought flawless faces onto the canvas in large format.
Just because you can see everything clearly doesn't mean you can see everything: “Silvia II”
Gertsch was that too: woodcuts of nature
But Gertsch not only painted, he also made woodcuts and was inspired by the nature around him. In the mid-1970s he moved to an old farmhouse in the Swiss countryside with his wife and children. The environment, the river and the forest, in which he went for a walk every day, were very present in his late work. “How is this diversity in nature possible? If you look at this snowy tree: Who has the imagination to accomplish these structures, these movements?” he wondered.
Gertsch never let go of the joy of creating art. “I'm a very nervous and impatient person – it's hard for me to be patient – but as soon as I hold a chisel or a brush in my hand, a silence comes over me,” he once revealed to Swiss television when it said to him filmed at work.
The auction house Sotheby's described Gertsch as “an artist who updated the virtuoso technical artistry of the old masters”. Now the great Swiss painter has fallen asleep at the age of 92. His work lives on in the museum of the same name he founded in Switzerland.
suc/so (AFP, SRF)