St. Moritz

Emil Cardinaux’s elegant depiction of cross-country skiers and winter guests in horse-drawn sleighs against the backdrop of Piz Albana and Piz Julier is one of those formidable Swiss posters that are often referred to as a “must-have”. Of course, you don’t have to have one at all. But many people – whether collectors of Original (Swiss) Winter Posters or distinguished lovers of the Engadin – would love to own it. On the one hand, it is much rarer than Cardinaux’ somewhat later poster for the St. Moritz Hotel Palace, and on the other, thanks to the sparse splashes of color, which appear all the more vibrant in the magnificent snow-covered landscape, you can literally feel the freezing cold.

The Bernese artist (1877 – 1936) initially began “something right” at the behest of his father – a law degree – but at the same time took lessons at the Bern Art School before studying for almost three years at the Munich Art Academy under the leading German symbolist Franz von Stuck. Cardinaux’s Zermatt poster with the glowing Matterhorn, printed in 1908, made him somewhat immortal – even though the motif, originally designed for an advertising card, was created in 1906 and only appeared as a travel poster thanks to the initiative of the printer Johann Edwin Wolfensberger. Nonetheless, Cardinaux was a co-founder and pioneer of the modern Swiss poster together with Burkhard Mangold from Basel (the artists from Geneva in particular had recognized the signs of the times somewhat earlier, but their output soon dried up).

more on Cardinaux and his Zermatt poster:

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