Lot 277 D

This self-portrait shows the Swiss painter Cuno Amiet, who had long since established himself and gained international recognition by the early 1930s: the half-length portrait fills the canvas, with Lake Thun and the Stockhorn ridge in the background - a panorama made very famous by Ferdinand Hodler, who had once been his close friend. In a confident pose Amiet seems to have only briefly turned away from the easel and towards his viewers. He peers at them, having slightly lowered the left hand with which he worked. The flesh tones, hair and clothing are depicted in luminous, sometimes non-local colours and enhance the impression of a warm or even summery atmosphere. While the painter is dressed formally his jacket is also unbuttoned, apparently because of the warm weather; his tie has been loosened casually, and its colours are adapted to the landscape. The sporty, fashionably striped club tie could be a reminiscence of water sports, and it corresponds thematically to the light rowing boat at the front right of the middle ground. Without the tie, the lake's surface and mountains would be at risk of disappearing within the warm haze: it simultaneously invests the motif with solidity and intensifies the pictorial effect which records the atmosphere of a glorious summer day in this beautiful mountainous landscape.

This self-portrait was created at a time when the artist was becoming friends with the Swiss collector and patron Eugen Loeb. Loeb was particularly interested in artists' self-portraits, and the creation of the painting offered here is presumably also to be seen in this context.
Cuno Amiet advised Eugen Loeb regarding his purchases of art and the friends spent time with each other, along with their families. In 1934 they journeyed to Venice together, where the painter made a portrait of his friend and patron Loeb in front of Palladio (see comparative illus.). Their letters - in which they always respectfully address one another with the formal pronoun “Sie” - testify to their private attachment and great personal closeness. Those by Amiet are also composed in a refreshing, seigneural self-assured tone, full of surreal humour (see exhib. cat. Biel 2001, op. cit., pp. 14 ff.).