Notes

Alois Carigiet was a highly versatile and talented Swiss artist: Not only was he a gifted painter, graphic artist and stage designer but also a talented and renowned author and illustrator of children’s books.

Carigiet was born on August 30, 1902 in the mountainous environment of Trun, Switzerland. After quitting the Gymnasium in 1918 he started an apprenticeship as a decorative designer and draftsman with master painter Martin Räth, where he learned the art of graining, marbleizing, gold plating and other techniques of decorative art. Carigiet finished in 1923, with the highest grade in every subject. After this apprenticeship, he trained as a graphic designer both in Paris and Zurich, and remained active as a designer up until World War II – creating many classical and iconic posters of that era. In Zurich, Carigiet was a co-founder of the Zurich cabaret “Cornichon” (The Pickle). In 1939, he moved back to his native mountains and changed artistic directions, focusing on painting. He illustrated many children’s books, which won him the Hans Christian Andersen Award for illustration in 1966. This award brought him recognition not just in Switzerland but also in the United States and in Japan. After residing once again in Zurich between 1950 and 1960, he returned to Trun, where he lived until his death on August 1, 1985 – continuing to paint as long as he could.

From the 1930s on Carigiet frequently traveled abroad, among others to France, Spain, Germany, Austria and Italy. Carigiet’s keen interest in the theatre, having worked in costume design in the late 1920s, must have made Venice an attractive travel destination and suitable scenery to fill his sketchbooks with drawings.

Carigiet’s mostly exuberant and colorful compositions were noticed and positively reviewed by art critics such as Manuel Gasser in Graphis Inc. or Linus Birchler, editor-in-chief of Art Monuments of Switzerland and member of the Swiss Federal Art Commission. His many exhibits in Switzerland, Germany and Canada secured his artistic and commercial successes.