Emile Bressler

Portrait of man in hat

Among the many Geneva painters of the first half of the century, Emile Bressler is immediately noticed by the originality of his talent. His intrusion into Fauvism, at the end of the 1910s, beginning of the 1920s, should even have made him one of the retrospective masters of this school. But his artistic evolution, even his detachment, and especially the war, decided otherwise. Returning to his homes, the painter pruned. Loaded with the dust of time, his painting has gradually been refined. From the landscape that had long been vibrant with matter, Bressler only sought to render the essential, to the point of completing his journey in serenity, out of fashion which, in any case, could no longer reach him. Perhaps Emile Bressler came from too far away, not so much in time or space, but in the soul. Orphaned at the age of 14, his only goal was painting. Without the insistence of the singer Clotilde Bressler-Gianoli, he would probably not have succeeded. But his sister-in-law insisted that the young man follow the School of Fine Arts, where his undeniable talent could flourish. Henceforth, painting accompanied him throughout his life. After discovering oil in 1910, the young painter struck a blow by winning the highly sought-after first prize from the Diday Foundation. The most important critic of the time, Mrs. L.Florentin, said of him: "Here he imposes himself, with his vision, with his technique and that we can no longer forget him". This was the real starting point for Bressler. Before the 14-18 war, with his wife, he went first to Cassis, then to Paris where he fears any contemporary influence, so attached is he to work in the field, in the landscape. Without knowing that he would never exhibit in Paris, he left for Brittany where, after a few months, he had painted about twenty canvases allowing him, by adding his canvases of Paris, to consider a first personal exhibition. Returning to Geneva he was a great success, and in 1920, found in Vernaz new landscapes dictating many paintings to him. After years of travels and the birth of his daughter Madeleine, Bressler experienced World War II in France, and so at that time his painting expressed his horror of what was happening. In 1949, with the death of his wife Blanche Sarzeau, solitude won over him and he left his home in Thônex for Spain, from where he brought back sumptuous landscapes, then for a final pilgrimage to the shores of the Mediterranean. He died in 1966 following a broken femur, but we will remember an artist out of time, forever. Text by Alain Penel, taken from the preface of the book: Emile Bressler