((Bäume mit Köpfen)). Wandbild UNESCO-Ausstellung
Material / Technique
Tempera auf PavatexDimensions
100 x 200 cmInventory number
HEM-426Designation text
Hans Erni-Stiftung, Depositum aus der Kunstsamlung des Bundes, BernLegend
Hans Erni (1909-2015)
Picture panel for the UNESCO exhibition, Zurich 1949
Hans Erni-Stiftung, Luzern, Depositum der Kunstsammlung des Bundes
A few months after the end of the Second World War, UNESCO was founded in London in November 1945 as a sub-organisation of the UN. Its objectives can be seen in its full name, "United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization", of which "UNESCO" is an abbreviated form reduced to the initial letters: To this day, the organisation is dedicated to the promotion of education, science and culture, as well as to mutual exchange among representatives of these fields, but also lay people from different countries. Still under the impression of the devastating war, one of UNESCO's overriding goals was to prevent future armed conflicts by promoting international communication.
In 1949, Switzerland also joined this organisation, which was immediately celebrated at the end of August of that year by an exhibition in the Zurich Kongresshaus. The exhibition was also intended to inform the Swiss population about the aims and possibilities of this organisation and to encourage them to participate, which is why it was connected to the popular radio exhibition taking place at the same time.
Central pieces of the exhibition, conceived and designed by the Zurich artist and designer Gottfried Honegger (1971-2016), were 13 picture panels by the Lucerne artist Hans Erni, who had achieved national fame a few years earlier with the monumental mural "Switzerland, the holiday land of nations" at the tourism pavilion of the 1939 Zurich National Exhibition.
In Erni's virtuoso drawing style, the panels show motifs that can be loosely identified with UNESCO's fields of activity: A reading couple may be taken to indicate education, a head next to organ forms may signify science, while the multitude of faces - also found on the present panel - may stand for peacemaking communication. The panels are thus an early example of Hans Erni's lifelong endeavour to use his works to present complex issues in a visually appealing form.
The panels were received very controversially: While some commentaries in the press praised their freshness and modernity, the conservative press in particular rejected the panels outright, whereby Erni's reputation as an "extreme leftist" artist in the Switzerland of the beginning Cold War may have played a role.
After the exhibition, the panels disappeared and led a shadowy existence in a public depot for decades. They were recently restored on behalf of the Federal Art Collection and handed over on permanent loan to the Hans Erni Foundation, in whose museum they will be on public display again for the first time in decades.