LONDON.- Swiss artist Verena Loewensberg (1912 – 1986) was a leading figure within the influential Zurich school of concrete artists. She was also the only female member of the group, which included Max Bill, Camille Graeser and Richard Paul Lohse. Hauser & Wirth presents the first solo gallery exhibition in the UK dedicated to this singular 20th-century figure, featuring striking paintings from the 1960s to 1980s in which Loewensberg broke from the strictures of concrete art. Shifting to ideas of color field, hard-edge and minimalism, the artist distinguished herself through her formal and chromatic flair. These are accompanied by two lively early works from the ‘40s and late ‘50s respectively, the only sculpture Loewensberg ever made and a wallpaper based on a design by the artist. The exhibition is organized with Henriette Coray Loewensberg, president of the Verena Loewensberg Foundation, with the support of Lionel Bovier, vice president of the Foundation and director of MAMCO in Geneva.
Discover the vibrant world of Verena Loewensberg! This catalog showcases the stunning geometric compositions of a pioneering female artist in the Concrete Art movement.
The exhibition opens with a wallpapered section of wall, which not only provides a backdrop to present Loewensberg’s paintings upon but also offers a glimpse into the artist’s early career. In 1927, Loewensberg began studying weaving, embroidery, design and color theory and, like Sonia Delaunay and Sophie Taeuber- Arp, she worked in applied arts and design throughout her career, firmly believing in the application of geometric abstraction to everyday life. An example of one of her designs is reproduced as a wallpaper and is complemented by an oil on canvas from 1957. With this painting, Loewensberg achieved a sense of movement and energy both through her striking palette of primary colors and more and by fragmenting the grid—a structuring system she would often play with. This anticipates the unrestrained use of shape, patterning and color prevalent in her work from the 1960s.
Concrete art dominated the art scene in Switzerland, yet the works on view demonstrate Loewensberg’s deep engagement with contemporaneous international movements such as color field, hard-edge and minimalism. Paintings from 1967 reveal Loewensberg’s technical mastery of freehand painting. Working from preparatory sketches and transferring the final design to the canvas with light construction lines, Loewensberg’s liberated free-hand approach became a vehicle for self-expression. These works also reveal the artist’s ability to champion the color white, taking neutral tones from their role as a base and bringing them to the fore to produce circular shapes in the middle of these compositions.
Although the concretists were of great personal and professional importance to the artist, she attained a distinctly creative independence, stating in 1977 that, ‘It was as if I were a bird that had to learn to fly by itself.’ In the ensuing decades, her paintings took on an atmospheric quality, an effect that she called ‘Stimmung,’ which refers to their overall tone or mood. The exhibition includes a selection of deceptively simple two- toned paintings from the 1970s and 1980s in which she used closely related colors to render monochromatic compositions.
In 1980, at the age of 68, Loewensberg traveled to Sicily to visit the Greek temples, a journey that led to the production of a new series of paintings that evoke the formal elements of these ancient forms. On view is the only sculpture she would ever make, produced in 1982. Comprised of five pairs of parallelepipeds constructed out of wood, the untitled work is one of a very few by Loewensberg that allude to existing structures.
As with the sculpture on view, each of Loewensberg’s works are untitled, mirroring her relative silence on her work and private life. She produced no theoretical writings, and her preparatory sketches never reached the eye of the public. This reticence was perhaps intended to avoid the essentialisation of her work, particularly by a global and local art world that systematically marginalized female artists. By largely abstracting her artistic intentions and her personal life, Loewensberg invited free interpretation of her art and its capacities.
In 1981, five years before her death, Loewensberg was celebrated with a retrospective at the Kunsthaus Zürich, the museum’s first exhibition on a woman artist. Subsequent shows of Loewensberg’s work have taken place at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau (1992), Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich (1998 and 2006) and Kunst Museum Winterthur (2012). In 2022, MAMCO (Musée d’art moderne et contemporain) in Geneva also held a major retrospective.
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