W. (xx Sec.) Kern Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Walter Kern was born in 1898. He exhibited his works at the Kunsthaus Zurich as early as 1917 and moved to Geneva in 1919 with his childhood friend, the draftsman and painter Robert Schürch. Read the full biography

Walter Kern was born in 1898. He exhibited his works at the Kunsthaus Zurich as early as 1917 and moved to Geneva in 1919 with his childhood friend, the draftsman and painter Robert Schürch. From 1920 to 1922 Kern worked as a clerk and as a freelance painter in Madrid and Florence. From 1922 to 1927 he found work as a foreign language correspondent in Thun and in 1924 he published his first volume of poems. From 1928 to 1930 he worked as an advertising and commercial director in Zurich, in 1928 he also exhibited at the National Art Exhibition and in 1930 he published poems by Hans Arp. From 1930 to 1943 he was traffic director of Davos and during this period he wrote monographs on Oscar Lüthy, Franz Rederer, Hermann Huber, Oskar Kokoschka and on painting in Graubünden. 1944-1953 Kern works as an independent advertising consultant and publishes on Otto Meyer-Amden, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Turo Pedretti. From 1948 to 1961 he was a member of the AICA, Association Internationale des Critiques d'Art, and in 1965 he was appointed honorary president of the Swiss section. From 1953 to 1964 Kern ran the book printing house in Winterthur and until his death he worked as a writer and painter in Uttwil on Lake Constance. Walter Kern maintained a lively correspondence throughout his life. He wrote to over a hundred artists for publications and exhibition projects, some of whom he remained in close contact with for decades. More than two hundred letters from Robert Schürch alone and several dozen from Otto Baumberger, Eduard Gubler, Hermann Huber, Fritz Pauli, Franz Rederer and Albert Schnyder have survived. In the 1920s Walter Kern dealt intensively with the works of the Dadaists and Surrealists. Letters by Kurt Schwitters, precious catalogs and the typescript of a volume of poems by Hans Arp have survived from this period. The list of other interlocutors, several of whose letters have survived, reads like a Who's Who of the Swiss art scene from the 1920s to the 1960s: Cuno Amiet, Max Bill, Hans Erni, Hans Fischli, Augusto Giacometti, Max Gubler , Leo Leuppi, Turo Pedretti or Matias Spescha are just the best known. Thanks to the generous donation of Walter Kern's son Rätus Kern, the letters have been accessible to the public in the SIK-ISEA real estate archive since 2008.