Anet (Switzerland). He is one of the most famous painters in Switzerland in the 19th century. Albert Anker (1831-1910) is known for his harmonious scenes of peasant and village life, his delicate portraits of children with photographic quality or his still lifes that are larger than life – Swiss icons of painting that are endlessly reproduced in derivative products. And yet, Anker’s painting has suffered for many decades from an error of judgment: for many, it is said to have contributed to freezing the image of a perfect, eternal Switzerland that carries conservative values.
The Albert Anker Centre (CAA), which opened its doors at the beginning of June in the village of Anet, in the fertile Seeland region (nicknamed the “granary of Switzerland”), a stone’s throw from the capital, Bern, wants to do him justice by debunking preconceived ideas. He is a sensitive painter, committed to his time, “a humanist open to the world and with a wide range of interests” which is revealed during the visit of this ensemble – its curator, Daniela Schneuwly, does not hesitate to compare the place to a “Swiss Giverny”. Just like Claude Monet’s home and gardens in Eure, the CAA has taken up residence in the historic house of Anker and his family. The painter, son and grandson of veterinarians, initially destined to study theology, was born and died there. This imposing farm, built by Anker’s grandfather in 1803 in the heart of the village, has undergone a sensitive and delicate renovation: you can admire the enclosed garden with rose beds in front of the building, and wander through the rooms of this bourgeois interior, reconstructed piece by piece. In the magnificent former granary adjoining the house that houses the center’s reception services, a permanent exhibition can be discovered in 15 brief but richly illustrated sections. It sketches with touches the portrait of an artist trained in Paris where he opened up to the world and to ideas, who returned home where he portrayed children and inhabitants of the village of Anet. We discover the biography of this passionate archaeologist and ancient language enthusiast, father of six children, committed to modern educational standards and to supporting contemporary Swiss art – he was one of the architects of the creation of the Kunstmuseum Bern and sits on the Federal Commission for Fine Arts.
Family home of Albert Anker.
© Alexander Jaquemet
The artist’s studio, located in the attic of the house, is the beating heart of the place. Kept intact by the family, its state of preservation is unique. Everything has remained in place: from the platform where he had his village models pose to the small toys that occupied his children during the long posing sessions, through his library, its walls loaded with prints, memories, inspirations – for its curator, “Albert Anker’s spirit is still palpable there”. Even the ceilings and walls that betrayed long years of humidity were left as they were, not to mention the two windows that Anker had drilled into the roof in 1860 (and still functional!) to fill his studio with zenithal light – a pioneering work inspired by his wanderings in the Louvre Museum in Paris. They are said to be the first roof skylights to have existed on Swiss territory according to the architect of Historic Monuments.
A new pavilion
It took twelve years to complete this project through the Albert Anker-Haus Foundation, created in 1994, which bought the plot and the farmhouse in 2016, registered in 2009 in the Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National Importance, and remained in the Anker estate for seven generations.
It is in the lush and somewhat wild garden that the last stone in the CAA building can be discovered, the art pavilion built and completed in 2022 by an architect from the village. This pavilion serves both as a temporary exhibition space and as a storage space for archives and works from the collection – it is a real “Schaulager” according to its architect Marcel Hegg who carried out the entire renovation of the site. The first exhibition presented this summer in the 100 square meters of the exhibition room is devoted to Anker’s travel notebooks “in the southern light”. Yet another little-known aspect of Anker – he was at once a plein-air painter sketching southern European landscapes in watercolour, a copyist of the great masters of the Italian Renaissance and a precise cartographer of his travels.
