LINKS
www.royalacademy.org.uk
Masters
of Colour: Derain to Kandinsky Exhibit (15)
80 Masterpieces from the Merzbacher Collection - 27 July
– 17 November 2002
World War I, self made businessman Bernhard Mayer,
Gabrielle Merzbacher’s paternal grandfather, a german who based himself in
Switzerland with interests worldwide, from Brussels and Paris to New York, built
up a small collection of I and PI, all of them museum quality. He bought The
Postman Joseph Roulin 1889, now in the MOMA, NY. He died in 1946 and his art
collection was distributed to both his family and other collections. A few in
this exhibit were passed from Mayer to Gab. Was the foundation of the Merzbacher
collection.
Werner was born 1928 in Germany, evacuated to Switzerland.
Met and married G in NY and joined the family business later to become chief
executive. Their collection focused on color and how artists had used it in the
twentieth century, whether as aid to the depiction of light, to the expression
of emotion or to the communication of abstract ideas. Fauvism, German
Expressionism and first phase of Russian Constructivism.