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CRITICAL AND BIGRAPHICAL NOTES ON ELSA OBERHOLZER (1900-1987) BY GIOVANNI FRANCESCO CORDERO
She was a self- taught painter with the talent of great creative power and inventiveness as well as a free and vibrant phantasy.
A dedicated violinist, she lives apart from the world to dedicate all her time to aesthetic activity and music, litterature of classic works and noting her thoughts reflections and aphorisms of great spirituality and mystery.
Her art is strongly influenced by symbolist trends as far as her Italian period is concerned and expressionist and informal trends for her Swiss period.
Her works portray a great chromatic sensitiveness and a luminous colour scheme which is both free and fluid, something that will last down to the end of her days.
Elsa Oberholzer was born in Sankt Gallen in Switzerland on May 30th 1900, the second child of Otto Oberholzer and Lidia Freund.
Her family went to Turin in 1901 and lived there until 1945, after
moving to a farmhouse near Alba.
In 1957 she left to go back to Switzerland to live with her elder sister in Bern until her death in 1987.
She began research in art in 1927 and carried on this work for sixty years.
Her exibition include:
Burdeke Gallery , Zurich 14-30 September 1965
Munster Gallery, Bern 28 May-17 June 1970
Museum of Modern Art Sankt Gallen - Collective exibition on painting in East Switzerland from 1955 to 1965 ( 8- 22 August 1993).
Waldensian Cultural Center, Paolo Paschetto Room, Torre Pellice
Drawings from her final 30 years'of work,Alba 1954.55
First water paintings of the Swiss period 1957-60 (July 21 to August 31 1996)
The whole collection is in the hands of her nephew and sole heir, Franco Urani, and consists in over 2.000 drawings, water paintings and various autobiographical writings as well.
Further information and the catalogue are availables from Franco and Lidia Urani, via Santa Giulia 67, 10124 Turin, Italy, tel 011. 83 50 00/83 66 16. Fax. 817 48 39.
List of works exihited