Hermann Haller

Hermann Haller (born December 24, 1880 in Bern, † November 23, 1950 in Zurich) was a sculptor and is considered one of the founders of modern sculpture in Switzerland. Haller was more of a modeler than a sculptor.

As a 14-year-old high school student, Hermann Haller decided to become a painter during an exhibition for paintings by the painter Ferdinand Hodler. It was also Hodler who attested to the great talent of 17-year-old Haller. He first started studying architecture in Stuttgart. In 1901, he enrolled in the painting class of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. There he met a classmate from Bern, Paul Klee. He traveled with him from October 1901 to May 1902 across Italy.

From 1901 he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. During this time, his friendship with the painter Karl Hofer began. Winterthur's patron, Theodor Reinhart, allowed Haller, like Hofer, to spend longer in Rome at Villa Strohl-Fern, where he turned to sculpture. In 1907, Hermann Haller rose to prominence with recognition in an art magazine. In January 1909 he married singer Gerda Agnes von Wätjen (1886–1965), daughter of councilor Hermann Nicolaus von Wätjen (1851–1911) and maternal granddaughter of painter Benjamin Vautier.

From 1909 until the outbreak of the First World War, he lived with his family in Paris, where he came into contact with the circle of artists of the Café du Dôme through his brother-in-law, the painter Otto von Wätjen, and his future wife. Marie Laurencin and befriends Ernesto de Fiori and Rudolf Levy. The Hallers spent the summer months at the Wätjens Haus am Meer in Cap Ferret, near Arcachon. In 1914 he returned to Switzerland and worked as a successful sculptor in Zurich. In 1917, he married the painter Felicitas Trillhaase (1894–1961), known as "Chichio", daughter of the painter Adalbert Trillhaase. In Zurich, he befriends Hermann Hubacher and later becomes his witness.

From 1919, he maintained a new relationship with his pupil, the sculptor Hedwig Braus, whom he married in April 1945. Between 1921 and 1923, Braus and Haller together made various study trips during the winter months in Berlin. , first at the art dealer Paul Cassirer, then at Fritz Huf, in whose studio he works, as well as in Paris and in Italy.

In the 1920s Haller was one of the most famous sculptors in the German-speaking region. In 1922, Haller created the bronze figure Young Man with a Blue Thrush for the Widmann Fountain on Hirschengraben in Bern. During this time in Zurich he became the most important figure sculptor in Switzerland. In 1933, the University of Zurich awarded him an honorary doctorate. With Cuno Amiet, he represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale in 1934. Haller was a full member of the German Association of Artists until its dissolution by the National Socialists in 1936.

Haller's theme, the erotic tension between the sexes, runs through all of his work, which mainly includes female nudes (sometimes life-size) and portrait busts. Her female clay figures radiate cheerfulness and warmth. His studio, which he designed and built in 1932, at Höschgasse 6 in Zurich, just opposite the Le Corbusier Center, formerly the Heidi Weber Museum, is open to the public every summer and displays many of the artist's original works. The wood workshop is one of the last witnesses of Bauhaus architecture in wood in Europe. Haller received an honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1933 and the Zurich Art Prize in 1949. Together with his friend Jakob Probst, Haller participated in the third international sculpture exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1949.

Haller - whose nephew was the composer of the same name, by the way - stayed in Ascona again and again. Ernst Morgenthaler delivered the speech at the abdication ceremony at the Fraumünster. Haller found his final home in the private cemetery on the Hohe promenade.