PAUL CAMENISCH | MENDRISIOTTO (RECTO), 1926; SELF-PORTRAIT (VERSO), 1926

Private collection, Switzerland (purchased directly from the artist)

Christie's Zurich, 5th December 2016, lot 65

Corporate collection, Switzerland (purchased at the above sale by the present owner)

Camenisch initially trained and worked as an architect. He began experimenting with fantastical architectural landscapes in 1921 and in 1923 he moved to Monte Verità in Ascona with an art scholarship. The following year he was living at the Villa Loverciano in Mendrisiotto and it was there that Camenisch met fellow painters Hermann Scherer and Albert Müller and together, on New Year’s Eve of 1925, the three artists founded the Gruppe Rot-Blau. Modelled on the German movement, Die Brücke, this group of Swiss artists brought together the foremost Expressionist painters of the day, who were inspired by the surrounding landscapes in Ticino and the Engadine. 

This exuberantly coloured landscape shows the vineyards in the area surrounding Mendrisiotto where the three artists painted together. Subsequently Camenisch added a self-portrait on the verso, showing himself wide-eyed and emerging from vivid red and purple undergrowth. The work was shown in Dresden in 1926, with the self-portrait side being the first image that visitors encountered in the exhibition and the painting was exhibited again in 1928 at the Kunsthalle, Basel.