Jacques Jacobi

Painter born in Geneva in 1877, Jacques Jacobi studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and at the Ecole des Arts Industriels; he will have notably as professors Barthélémy Bodmer and Léon Gaud. He also studied in Brussels in 1896 with the painter Ernest Blanc-Garin, as well as in Schaerbeek and Paris where he worked in the studio of Fernand Cormon.

He exercises the activity of painter in parallel with his charge of drawing teacher. He participated in numerous exhibitions in French-speaking Switzerland, in particular the Premier Salon genevois which was held in 1914, but also in many national exhibitions. In 1900, he was present at the Salon des Champs-Elysées. In 1902, he took part in the decoration of the house of Paul Comblen in Liège by producing scenes for the stairwell from Greek mythology treated in a Symbolist aesthetic.

The same year, he married Alice Bordier, a young woman from the Genevan bourgeoisie and passionate about sculpture. In December 1911, he exhibited at the Rath Museum in Geneva alongside his wife and his artist colleague Gustave Maunoir. At the same time as his work and his exhibitions, he travels a lot in France (Marseille, Collioure, Antibes, La Rochelle, Pont-Aven) and in Italy (Volterra).