Selbstbildnis in Tessiner Landschaft
Hermann Scherer (1893–1927)

Hermann Scherer, Selbstbildnis in Tessiner Landschaft (Self-portrait in a Ticino Landscape), 1926, oil on canvas. Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano. Collezione Cantone Ticino

Hermann Scherer trained as a sculptor in Germany and Basel, where he worked with Carl Burckhardt. In Basel he met Albert Müller and Otto Staiger and opened his own workshop. In 1920, he accepted Müller’s invitation to Ticino, where he began painting in watercolours. His return to Basel marked his departure from classical-style sculpture. Inspired by the 1922 Munch exhibition in Zurich, he decided to become a painter. In 1923, his meeting with Kirchner in Basel was a key moment for his career, and the two men established a sincere friendship that would last until 1925. During his stays with Kirchner in Davos Frauenkirch he produced wooden sculptures, paintings and woodcuts. On New Year’s Eve 1924, at Müller’s house in Obino, he became one of the founders of the Rot-Blau group, along with other Basel artists. The members enjoyed working side by side, creating works with great expressive power. In 1925 he painted his great Ticino landscapes, inserting figures in 1926.

One of the artist’s last works, Self-portrait in a Ticino Landscapeis characterized by its violent palette, in which the intensity of the primary colours is heightened by their juxtaposition with complementary hues. The landscape is rendered in a subjective interpretation that transforms the gently sloping hills into steep crags by means of a strong formal distortion, imbuing the painting with a dramatic power. The artist has depicted himself as a grotesque character, lost and wandering in the landscape. The way he leans back as he walks creates a sensation of precariousness, reflecting his existential condition. The figure evokes the hulking volumes of the artist’s wooden sculptures, made in 1924 using the taille directe technique that Kirchner taught him.