Vallotton Manguin Hahnloser, Correspondance 1908-1928

This three-party correspondence proves painters knew how to write and collectors knew how to ask real questions. In one corner we have Vallotton, in the other an alter ego, Henri Manguin, and in the third a couple of exceptional sponsors. Hedy and her husband Arthur Hahnloser, an ophthalmologist from Winthertur, bought their works over various decades while knitting a real friendship with the artists. The letters include lists of prices and paintings, complaints about a stupid son-in-law as well as doubts about creation, discussions on the role of the gallery owner, a feeling of powerlessness in face of the most devastating butchery in history... An interesting psychoanalysis of an artist’s spirit and of a troubled period, to be completed by a visit to the Villa Flora where their collection is kept with its various works by Vallotton (among them La Blanche et la Noire which we can admire, among other works, at the exhibition at the Grand Palais).

• Vallotton Manguin Hahnloser, Correspondance 1908-1928, presented and noted by Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold and Valérie Sauterel, Bibliothèque des Arts, 2013, 630 p., €25.