promise of modernism from the Hans Erni disintegration that threatens it. He has been attacked as too Henry C. Pitz discusses the work versatile, too commercial, too facile, too mechanistic and too heavily burdened with of an outstanding Swiss artist philosophic and scientific thought. He will continue to be attacked by those critics THE CONTEMPORARY ART SCENE is who are uneasy in the presence of supreme much like amateur night in an old- competence and a restless and far-reaching fashioned vaudeville theater. A horde of mind. jostling contestants crowd onto its stage, That competence of his is an go through their little acts, sometimes to amazing thing. Many will rejoice in the violent clique applause, and are pushed spectacle of a powerful talent spilling its into the wings by avid newcomers. There riches in the prodigal way of a natural they wait, exhausted and hopeful, for an force. Others may recoil at the behest of a encore that never comes. current cliche which teaches that command In the audience are some, at least, of means is the eternal enemy of content. who wait expectantly for the big act; for But that manual certainty is a hard-won the performer of superlative endowment freedom—a freedom to concentrate on the who will still be fresh after the thousandth big problems; a freedom from the killing appearance. The waits are long. drag of manual incompetence. Too often our mid-century talents Of course, Erni is a man of unusual rot before they ripen. Their goal is a physical and mental vitality. He not only spurious freedom for which no price has spends long creative hours in his studio but been paid. Their creed is getting, not his muscles crave other releases. He pilots giving. Most of them are victims, and often his own plane and is captain of a hockey willing victims, of their times. But the team. He drives fast cars and swims and times are changing. climbs mountains. Forces have been working His mind ranges. He loves books underground. There is a core of the and music. He has a deep interest in younger artists who question the pat and contemporary philosophy, politics, and easy solution. They sense that power and science. Another side of him craves the freedom emanate from knowledge and that classics. This has led to his striking knowledge implies discipline. The way of illustrations for Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" knowledge and discipline is not for small and "Antigone" and Pindar's "Olympian natures. Probably big men are on their Odes." And it is present in part in almost way. everything he does, for tradition to him is Hans Erni is an important name not a pulseless and enervating trickle, but a among the emerging new breed of artist. strong tide of ancestral voices in the blood. This Swiss artist is a man of plenty. He is He is too intelligent to be trapped into the one of the fully armed, replacing the fallacy that the past is abolished by turning dabbler and weathercock experimenter. He one's back on it. is tough and disciplined, equipped to deal During 1927 and 1928 he studied at with realities instead of shadows. He has a the Arts and Craft School of Lucerne and faith and a purpose. then went to Paris for further study at the He believes in art as function. His Academy Julien. After a short return to his struggle is toward synthesis. His command birthplace, Lucerne, where he practiced over the old and new fit him for his task of graphic art, he entered Klewer's class at the helping to hammer out the form-language Staatschulen fur freie und angewandte of the future. Perhaps his destiny is to be Kunst in Berlin. Several years were then one of those who may save the brilliant spent alternating between Lucerne and Paris. He was then deep in modern French place. There is nothing of the usual studio painting, greatly influenced by Picasso and disorder. There is always a plan and a Braque. He became a member of the procedure, lost motion is reduced to a Abstraction-Creation group and came to minimum. know Brancusi, Arp, Kandinsky, Moore Erni places his art at the service of and others. the community. He is a humanist and an After taking part in the great idealist, therefore art can have little Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis exhibition in meaning for him unless it communicates. Lucerne in 1935 he traveled in Italy and He has passed through disillusion and had his eyes opened to the riches of defeat; they have made him into a man of antiquity. His restlessness carried him to hope and courage. He is fully conscious of Belgium and London, as he tasted and tried the multitudinous problems that press upon to assimilate all phases of the modern the contemporary artist; he is equally movement and of all past decades. aware of the vast storehouse of man's past Then in 1939 came his first great that modern study and reproduction have opportunity. He was commissioned to opened up to him. He conceives it to be the execute a huge mural for the Swiss contemporary artist's duty to assimilate National Exhibition in Zurich. Here he both kinds of material and engage upon a faced the problem of reconciling the gigantic task of synthesis. ambivalent demands of the abstract will-to- His nature contains challenging form with the realities of Swiss life, past opposites. His pictures are struggles of and present. Under the pressure of months reconciliation. That the reconciliation is of intensive work his style began to not always complete, he would, I believe, emerge. The completed mural attracted a be the first to admit. Intuition and great deal of attention and Erni's reputation conscious creation do not always fuse. The began to spread through Europe. mechanistic and the naturalistic do not From that time on his fame has always dovetail. Modernism and tradition grown steadily. He has been exhibited do not always join hands. But there are widely, with one-man shows in such large victories as well as defeats. centers as Basle, London, Zurich, Erni is built for a long battle. He Rotterdam, Prague, Winterthur and brings to it an amazing variety of gifts. He Geneva, and recently in Chicago, is still young; the next twenty years should Philadelphia and New York. see some astonishing things. There are few art forms or techniques that he has not explored. Scale- relationships seem to be no problem for him. They range from giant-size murals down to etchings the size of a hand. He is one of the world's finest poster designers, an important book illustrator and advertising artist. He has designed costumes and stage settings. Besides the pastel and sanguine drawings, the large tempera paintings and incidental sketches that are constantly pouring from his studio, recently have come a series of large color lithographs.

One of his friends calls him the most completely organized of all artists. (American Artist, Special Summer Issue, His studio is light, pleasant and efficient. June – July – August 1953, no. 6, issue 166; All tools and materials have their alloted online by ghidelli.net)