Ernest Biéler

Artist's studio

Collection of Madame Bellet, Lausanne (acquired during the exhibition at the Kunsthalle, Bern in 1938)

Private collection, Switzerland

Bern, Kunsthalle, Ernest Biéler, 7 May -12 June 1938, no. 177 (titled Walliser Haus)

In 1930, Ernest Biéler started working on a series of illustrations documenting the traditional buildings in the Valais, with the aim of raising awareness and trying to stop their destruction through the rapid urban development in the canton. The bulk of these gouaches on paper was executed in the spring and summer of 1931, and the idea was to publish them in a book edited by the Gazette de Lausanne. Unfortunately, this project was never realized but the original gouaches survive.