The Ateliers d’Artiste Foundation has been carrying out a unique rescue operation in French-speaking Switzerland for 20 years. The institution based in Saint-Maurice, in Valais, is working to inventory and showcase more than 70,000 works by French-speaking artists, more than the collections of the Valais and Neuchâtel museums combined.
All works are subject to careful examination before joining the collections. A team of volunteers inventory the paintings and engravings to make them visible online. Some have to go through the restoration box.
This collection is the result of contacts that the foundation has established with French-speaking artists of a certain age or with their entourage.
The curator of Ateliers d’Artiste Walter Tschopp takes the example of the Vaudois painter Charles Meystre (1925-2013), who made a career in Paris.
“Charles Meystre told us: ‘I’ve been waiting for your call for years,'” says Walter Tschopp. “We have more than 100 pieces by him. One day we will have to do an exhibition,” he notes.
Warehouses soon to be full
With the waiting list growing and storage space lacking, the foundation had to establish a two-year moratorium. The Valais institution already has three warehouses, which are almost full.
Inside, there are funds saved sometimes at the last minute. For example, portraits made by an artist who had joined the League of Nations were recovered from a trash can.
“When we see the historical and artistic importance of this work and we think that it has been saved from the dumpster, there is reason to ask questions,” says Walter Tschopp.
Often, after the death of the artist, families find themselves with a substantial artistic heritage and do not always know how to manage it.
Organization of exhibitions
To promote these works, the foundation organizes exhibitions, including one entitled “Women and artists after 1930”, which lasts until July 7.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. “Sixty workshop funds are waiting to be able to join this foundation. And we have had to put a moratorium until 2025, because we can no longer keep up. The questions that arise are what to conserve, according to what criteria , for what audience and by what deadline”, underlines Philippe Kaenel, professor of contemporary art history at the University of Lausanne and member of the foundation’s cultural mediation commission.
These questions will be the subject of a conference in October. The Ateliers d’Artiste Foundation, overwhelmed by the scale of its mission, would also like to request help from the public authorities in order to save this French-speaking heritage.
Claudine Gaillard Torrent/friend
