Karl Aegerter

• Name — Karl Aegerter • Occupation — Swiss artist • Born — 16 March 1888 • Birthplace — Bern, Switzerland • Died — 12 May 1969 • Place of death — Basel, Switzerland • Illustration — Karl Aegerter-Hartmann (1888–1969) socially critical painter, fresco, woodcut, politician, grave at the cemetery Hörnli, Riehen, Basel-Stadt

At the age of seven, young Karl was given up as a “Verdingbub” (foster child), a common practice in an impoverished Switzerland at the time, as struggling farmers gave up their children to urban foster families for a given period of time. During this time, Karl's older brother and role model, August Samuel Aegerter (Basel 17 October 1878 Basel – I June 1971, Basel), established himself in Basel as an artist, inspiring the young Karl.

Thereafter, Aegerter undertook several long journeys: in 1923–1924 to Vienna and Budapest, 1924–1925 to Berlin, Dresden and throughout Saxony; in 1927 to Rome, Italy, having received a stipend from Basler “öffentlichen Kunstsammlung”, the City of Basel’s official art collection. He continued in 1927 to Brussels and in 1928 to Paris. Aegerter also began around this time his lifelong relation with the high alpine region of Switzerland, Graubünden/Grisons. He took a medical retreat in 1924 in the region of St. Moritz, doing so again in 1940–43, and returned again in 1945, having received yet another stipend from the City of Basel to complete a "Study of Graubünden", dedicating himself to landscape painting.

Having established his domicile in Basel in the late 1920s, Aegerter became a fixture in the city's thriving and highly political art scene. It was around this time that Aegerter's political engagement intensified, and he joined the Communist Party. In 1926 he met the Basel poet (Aegerter) (née Elisabeth Hartmann (1895–1955)), who after their marriage in 1930, wrote under her adopted pseudonym Elisabeth (Ae)Gerter. Gerter was a journalist, poet and story writer of the “Social Realism” school. Karl often illustrated her works, many of which were published to great acclaim in Switzerland and are still in print today. In 1926, Aegerter left aside his artistic activity for a full-time engagement in politics to become the Party Secretary of the Swiss Communist Party in Basel (KP Basel). This continued through the 1930s until the banning of the Party in Switzerland, after which time his political affiliation moved to the Socialist Party (SP). From 1932 to 1941 Aegerter served as an elected official in the City Council of Basel. From 1948, he served additionally as a Judge. During the same time he served for many years as president of the Basel Section of the Swiss Painter & Architects Guild (Gesellschaft Schweizerischer Maler, Bildhauer und Architekten (GSMBA)), founded in 1865 as the first and most powerful artists’ association of Switzerland at the time. After the Second World War, Aegerter and his wife spent long periods in the Belgian coal mining town of Borinage, completing a full series of paintings showing the suffering of the workers. Borinage itself had already been made famous in the 1934 silent film of Joris Ivens, “Misere au Borinage”; in the paintings of Henry Luyten of the 1860s of the great strikes of the time; and for being the home town of Vincent van Gogh. In 1955, after long illness, died. Later that year, Aegerter married for a second time, this time Marta Buchser. In 1962, an extensive catalog of Aegerter's works appeared, under the title "Gestalter des Humanen (Designer of Humane), which included a lengthy foreword of texts prepared from colleagues and professional acquaintances. Public recognition of the artist evolved from one major exhibition to another: 1959 in Basel; 1968 in Schloss Arbon; 1980 in Muttenz; 1987 in St-Ursanne; and 1996 in St. Moritz in the Galleria Curtins. Karl Aegerter died on 5 December 1969 in Basel.

Karl Aegerter's prolific artistic career emerged as a painter, sketcher, muralist, illustrator, sculptor and designer. His first major series of paintings, entitled "People of Today" (Menschen von Heute), came forth in the 1920s and focused on the themes of poverty and suffering in the aftermath of the First World War. Other central themes seen in his work related to industrial & mining subjects as well as alpine landscapes, still lives and portraiture. During his prolific career, Aegerter experimented with numerous styles, influenced by the various forces at work on the artistic scene, never truly belonging to any one "school". Following in the line of German Expressionism, and following on the First World War, Aegerter chose those who had been marginalized by society the central focus of his work. The working class milieu and the mining communities were at the forefront of his themes. Aegerter had experienced the resulting misery of war first hand and painted this in a dark, powerful fashion – each painting standing as a call for human justice, and global peace. A large part of his oeuvre comes from his Social Realism phase, culminating in the largest exhibition of the year at the Kunsthalle Bern in 1926, Aegerter exhibited with Käthe Kollwitz. R.R. Junghanns, and Dora Lauterburg amongst others. For ten years thereafter, Aegerter did not exhibit, being fully engaged in politics. After the war, having completed his Borinage series to much acclaim, there was a growing demand for murals and frescos by Aegerter. During the ensuing decade he completed more than ten murals, none of which have survived except one. These gross format works drew on classical symbolism as well as the Neue Sachlichkeit, with strong clear lines, which his good friend and artistic colleague, Niklaus Stoecklin, had popularized in Switzerland (exhibition in the Kunsthalle Basel 1959, K.A., Niklaus Stoecklin). With the death of his wife Elisabeth Gerter, the human figure disappeared from his painting and his work became more and more focused on architectural subjects and landscapes. Not only did the human figure slowly leave his work, but human suffering as well. His late works offer up generous landscapes, alpine settings, peaceful natural scenes – new horizons and a new palette, working with bright felt pens, a modern development, to layout his later works. Aegerter's works are prized in numerous private and public collections around the world. His work has often been likened that of Edvard Munch.

Solo Exhibitions: Group Exhibitions:

• "Lesender", "Winterlandschaft", "Passwang", "Arbeitergruppe" und Zeichnungen staatlicher Kunstkredit, Basel (für die öff. Slg., *Kupferstichkabinett), 1941–1944, 1947 • "Die Heimkehr", "Der Fabrikweg"—Schweiz. Eidgenossenschaft, (EDI) • "Selbstbildnis" Öffentlich Kunstsammlung, Basel • "Bergarbeiter-Dorf"—1950, Kunstverein Basel, Oil on canvas • "Humanität"—1957, Mural in Basel, Jakobsberg • "Arbeiter"—2008, Gift to the Solothurner Kunstmuseums With the exception of “Humanität“, all of Aegerter's murals in Basel and the surroundings have been lost as a result of reconstruction