Giovanni GIACOMETTI ✿

Giovanni Giacometti (1868-1933) was a Swiss post-impressionist painter. Together with Cuno Amiet he was one of the first Swiss artists that adapted and further explored Post-impressionism, Symbolism and Fauvism introducing novelty aspects of Modernism.

From 1886 to 1887, he studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich. He had wanted to attend the Academy of Fine Arts, but was insufficiently prepared. He also took lessons at two private schools and copied Old Masters at the Alte Pinakothek. Ultimately, he decided that Munich was not right for him, so he and his friend, Cuno Amiet, went to Paris where they studied with William Adolphe Bouguereau and Joseph Nicolas Robert-Fleury at the Académie Julian until 1891, when financial difficulties forced him to return home.

In a short time, he began to feel isolated there and, in the summer of 1893, went to Rome, but found little inspiration. After a brief stay in Torre del Greco, broke and ill, he once again returned to Switzerland. The following year, he met and befriended the painter Giovanni Segantini who, despite being only ten years older, became an invaluable mentor; introducing him to the beauty of mountainous landscapes and the Divisionist style. In 1898, he achieved his first major success at the Kunsthaus Zürich in a joint exhibition with his friend, Amiet, and Ferdinand Hodler.

In 1908, he received an invitation from Die Brücke, an artists' group, to exhibit in Dresden. He participated in a showing by the Berlin Secession in 1911 and had his first solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zürich the following year. His first retrospective came in 1920. He served two terms on the Eidgenössische Kunstkommission [de], from 1918 to 1921 and from 1931 to 1932. Over the course of his career, he moved from Divisionism to Post-Impressionism, then on to Expressionism, with some works in the Symbolist and Art Nouveau styles along the way.