Art News

The Work of Zurich Painter and Poet Salomon Gessner Presented at Kunsthaus Zürich

ZURICH.- In an exhibition entitled ‘Idyll in an Obstructed Landscape’, to run from 26 February until 16 May 2010, the Kunsthaus Zürich presents the work of Zurich painter and poet Salomon Gessner. The show reconstructs Gessner’s cabinet, which comprises 20 gouaches and watercolours and laid the cornerstone for the Kunsthaus collection in the first half of the 19th century. An additional 50 pieces from the museum’s own collection and on loan from owners domestic and foreign round out the survey of Gessner’s oeuvre. Salomon Gessner (1730-1788) was celebrated during his lifetime for his art and poetry, the latter translated into more than 20 languages. In Europe and the Americas as well as in Russia, Armenia and the Caucasus, Gessner’s ‘Idylls’, elegantly naïve tributes to the ideals of the Enlightenment, met with an enthusiastic reception. Gessner spent the better part of his life in Zuric