Exhibition Leaflet
Alice Pauli and prints

Driven by her passion for contemporary art, Alice Pauli regularly mounted shows featuring prints from the very first, when she opened her gallery in 1961, until the early 2000s.

Long part of the art of the multiple, prints went through a period of renewed interest and popularity in the 1960s. Produced in limited editions, signed and justified by the artist, done as part of a series or as a lone work of art, prints can be a way to awaken in a public still rather skittish about modern art the urge to collect what is being created at that very moment. ‘Young English artists are unknown in our country and we are thinking of showing engravings and lithographs at an initial exhibition that could be followed by a second featuring paintings’, the gallerist wrote in 1967 to Alecto, one of the London print studios that Alice Pauli tapped for new works.

Engraving offers artists a broader impact for their output and clients the chance to acquire an original piece of art at a more modest price. For Alice Pauli, it was an opportunity to associate major names in contemporary art with her gallery in Lausanne. And generally copperplate engraving and lithography were favoured over silkscreen prints – a technique that was largely used in advertising. It was a way for the gallerist to offer her clients high-quality prints that stood out from what was being printed off for commer- cial purposes.

To exhibit prints by Swiss, European and American artists, Alice Pauli worked increasingly with fine-art publishers and galleries in Basel (the Beyeler Gallery), London (Waddington Graphics), New York (Parasol Press, Petersburg Press), and Los Angeles (Gemini).

Over the years, Alice Pauli personally supported and encouraged a number of artists in the design, printing, and sale of their prints, including Catherine Bolle and Jean Lurçat. This show brings together some fifteen artists whose work graced the walls of her gallery. Some of the works featured here were selected from the pieces making up the part of the Alice Pauli Bequest that MCBA has placed with the Musée Jenisch Vevey-Cabinet cantonal des estampes.