BISSIER UND BAMPI: DAS FREIBURGER KERAMI Format: Paperback

In the 1950s, a large number of internationally renowned artists created pictures made of ceramic. In 1956, in close collaboration with the artist and ceramicist Richard Bampi, Julius Bissier developed a ceramic work for the University of Freiburg. The abstract composition on a wall in the city center measures over 19.5 meters long by 2.6 meters high (64 × 8.5 feet). Its restoration and relaunch is occasion to examine more closely the story of its genesis. The distinctiveness of the artwork becomes clear against a backdrop of the cultural politics oriented on France in Freiburg after 1945. Unexpected parallels in contemporaneous ceramic murals by Fernand Léger, Joan Miró, and Victor Vasarely are revealed and make the Freiburg ceramic picture a unique work in the post-war art of Germany.

Text in German.

Maria Schüly worked as a research associate, curator, and head of the applied art collection at the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg/Breisgau (DE) from 1982 to 2015. She graduated from her studies in art history at the Universities of Freiburg and Vienna in 1982 with her dissertation Richard Bampi – Keramiker der Moderne (Ceramicist of the Modern Age). She has published work on ceramics by August Macke, Julius Bissier, and Horst Kerstan, among others. She currently organizes exhibitions on contemporary ceramics for STUDIO at the Staufen Ceramics Museum.