Georges Bloch (1901-1984) was an outstanding example of classic patronage. He made a name for himself in specialist circles for owning almost the entire printed oeuvre of Pablo Picasso and also, given his profound knowledge of the artist’s work, for publishing a four-volume catalogue raisonné of Picasso’s prints. The artist and the collector were friends. Picasso held Bloch’s knowledge in high esteem and regularly conversed with him.

Bloch and his wife Jenny had no children. During Georges’ lifetime, he made arrangements for his estate that would resonate after his death. In 1972, he gifted a selection of more than 470 Picasso prints to the Gottfried Keller-Stiftung, instructing the foundation to distribute these among eight Swiss museums. One of the recipients was Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich. The collector and patron also instructed that an exhibition of the donated works should be held regularly. Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich is delighted to undertake this task. While earlier exhibitions in other museums have highlighted thematic focal points, Graphische Sammlung ETH has chosen to focus on the unique friendship between Picasso and Bloch.
Although Bloch was of great service to Picasso with regard to his prints, the role he played is little-known in Switzerland beyond a circle of specialists. The relationships between Bloch and Picasso, as well as the benefits he brought to others, including Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich, will therefore be brought to the fore. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

Curator: Dr Linda Schädler, Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich

The Museo d’Arte Mendrisio will be holding an exhibition of Picasso’s prints at the same time.

With the kind support of the Georges and Jenny Bloch Foundation.

Volcanoes are uniquely powerful. They make the land fertile yet they can just as easily destroy it. The closest we can get to them is by climbing them and maybe even seeing the Earth at work. If we regard architecture as a continuation of the Earth’s crust, then volcanoes could be said to hold up a mirror to our built structures. For the last decade Philip Ursprung (professor of the history of art and architecture at ETH Zurich) and his team have trekked to various volcanoes to investigate their impact on the surrounding area, the local economy and the culture of that region.

The exhibition at the Graphische Sammlung takes inspiration from these trips and explores the volcano as a phenomenon. The curators – Berit Seidel, Linda Schädler and Philip Ursprung – have been on a fact-finding mission in the collection. How were volcanoes depicted in the past? How are they depicted today? Does the mythological figure of Vulcan still live on, is he still forging artefacts and weapons for the gods? If so, where and how? And how, if at all, do the disciplines of vulcanology, geology and art history interact? Besides works on paper from the Graphische Sammlung, the exhibition will also include a selection of prints by the botanist and geologist Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn (1809–1864), works by U5, Armin Linke, and Bas Princen, plus rocks and other three-dimensional geological objects.

Curatorial Team: Linda Schädler, Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich; Berit Seidel, artist and architect; Philip Ursprung, professor of the history of art and architecture at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich.

The Graphische Sammlung ETH Zurich holds around 4,000 drawings by Swiss artists from the 18th and 19th centuries. These include compositional sketches, preparatory studies, and design drawings for printmaking to sophisticated watercolours and gouaches with a painterly quality, as well as meticulous scientific illustrations relating to Alpine research and natural history.

Thanks to the generous support given by the Stiftung Familie Fehlmann in Winterthur to the research project ‘Swiss Drawings’—a collaboration between the Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich and the Institute of Art History at the University of Zurich—this unique collection is currently the focus of scholarly research, cataloguing, and digitisation. The project will culminate in the exhibition Glaciers and Rapids, which will coincide with a conference and an accompanying publication on Swiss drawings.

The exhibition focuses on demonstrating how a visual image of Switzerland was created around 1800, both at home and abroad, that continues to resonate to this day. The exhibition aims to do justice to the complexity of the collection, while also highlighting the artistic quality of Swiss drawing. In doing so, it addresses a gap in research on art production in Switzerland.

Curatorial Team: Susanne Pollack and Linda Vogel

Printmaking played an important part in the oeuvre of Hugo Suter (1943–2013). His work is notable for its whimsical yet thoughtful approach to topics and motifs alike. He mostly found inspiration in his immediate surroundings – the view out of a window, the lake close to his house, a chance find in a newspaper. At the same time his prints are strikingly precise examples of high-quality workmanship. Suter was specially interested in working with glass, which explains why many of his prints are in fact hyalographs (glass prints). Glass allowed him to realise his often complex, multi-layered ideas to his own satisfaction.

In a research project launched by the Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich together with the Hugo und Mariann Suter Stiftung, Suter’s prints are being scientifically examined, recorded and made accessible in a digital catalogue raison-né. Concurrently with the publication of the catalogue rai-sonné, the exhibition will provide the public with a wider, multi-media gateway into Suter’s work: in addition to prints, the exhibits will also include photographs, drawings and three-dimensional objects, which will in turn highlight the interconnections and internal ramifications of his art. The exhibition will also be accompanied by a (hard-copy) book of essays that will explore in depth Suter’s special approach to printmaking.

Curatorial Team: Alexandra Barcal, keeper of 20th and 21st century works; Tim Oechslin, project assistant