Visitors guide
André Tommasini. A Life Spent Sculpting

Born in Lausanne to a family of Italian marble workers established near the Montoie Cemetery, André Tommasini (1931–2011) studied stone carving before training at the École cantonale de dessin et d’art
appliqué and in the studio of Casimir Reymond in the early 1950s.

He initially worked in the family business, which he took over when his father passed away in 1964, while also making for himself a career in art. Throughout his life, Tommasini was active in three areas, dividing his time between pursuing his studio practice, realising public commissions, and producing funerary stonework. Refusing to choose between his status as both a craftsman and an artist, he acquired a virtuoso technique in working with stone. This particular skill set lent his body of work an almost anachronistic character in the field of sculpture in the 1970s and ‘80s, when the medium was largely dominated by the use of metal and experimenting with new materials like plastic.

A man drawn to doing, Tommasini said little about his art. Critics have often praised the sensuality with which he treats volumes, the velvety character of the surfaces of his pieces, and the gentle transitions between the different sides. For his first solo show in 1975, he created sculptures in two parts designed, if not to fit into one another, at least to be set in a dialogue by leaving a void between them. With this innovation he began a reflection on the abstract depiction of the body.
A great admirer of the sculpture of Henry Moore and Constantin Brancusi, Tommasini was nevertheless hostile to all symbolism. His body of work displays above all formal experimentation around the tension of contradictory forms, the organic and the geometric, full and empty space, constriction and expansion.

Active mainly in what is called direct carving, a technique inherited from classic statuary, he liked to make his way to the very essence of a particular material’s expressive possibilities. He took special care when polishing the stone, which allows light to perfect what the sculptor’s hand prepared. In the early 1980s, he began working with the photographer Claude Huber on a documentation of his work where this aspect of Tommasini’s output proved especially significant. Their work together carries on a long tradition of a connection between the two mediums, inaugurated by Auguste Rodin. Administration and archiving of the sculptor’s activities were left to his wife, Suzanne Tommasini-Wyssbrod.

In his studio of nearly fifty years, located at the corner of Cour and Montoie avenues, Tommasini maintained an obsessional relationship to his work. Unshakeably focused on an ideal of perfection, he refused to accept that the process of making the work of art—long and demanding by necessity —might be visible in the final form. Carefully kept by the artist and shown here for the first time, numerous drawings as well as an important group of models in lead, cement, and plaster attest all the same to his trial-and-error experimentation.

One essential aspect of his art is that his works for public spaces led him to innovate equally in terms of the materials employed and the dialogue with the surrounding architecture. From the furniture of the Montoie funeral centre’s chapels, to the Épalinges sculpture-fountain, to multiple contributions to school furnishings and decorations, his public commissions are now part of the daily life of the canton’s inhabitants without their being aware of it. Unmistakable expressions of their time, today these works face the inevitable changes that have transformed the cityscape. This is the reason why we need to maintain their memory alive.

Tommasini was very much a part of the art scene in French-speaking Switzerland but he did have trouble understanding the art milieu and its developments beginning in the 1990s and eventually had few ties to the emerging generation of artists. Nevertheless, his contribution to Swiss sculpture of the second half of the 20th century sparked the interest of other sculptors such as Valentin Carron (1977, Fully). Partial to reappropriation in his work, Carron takes over and transforms forgotten or neglected representations that are part of the visual culture whilst encouraging us to see these objects with new eyes, sharper and more attentive. Reappropriating the academic exercise of copying other works of art, D’après Tommasini
(Travertin) (2015) is a painted resin-and-polystyrene copy of a travertine sculpture that has been in the garden of the Gianadda Foundation in Martigny since 1987. Here Carron outplays and undermines the heritage of the past whilst sparking a critical reflection on the obsolescence of any artistic practice.

This project would not have been possible without consulting the artist’s archives, which were donated in 2023 to Lausanne site of the Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIK–ISEA). Part of that collection is on display her.

1931
André Tommasini is born in Lausanne on 12 December. He is the youngest son of Amédée (Amadio) Tommasini (1900–1964) and Maria Tommasini Haering (1898-1980). The grandson of an Italian immigrant, Tommasini apprentices as a stone carver from 1946 to 1949 under his father, which allows him to join the family business of carving funeral monuments from the very start of his career.

1954
Completes his education at the École cantonale de dessin et d’art appliqué, where he has studied modelling under the artist Casimir Reymond (1893–1969). A long relationship of friendship and work starts between the two artists. Reymond will later entrust Tommasini with carving his gravestone.

1956
Takes part in his first group show, the Salon des Jeunes, at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne (MCBA).

1965
Marries Suzanne Wyssbrod, nicknamed Suzon, on 5 June in Lausanne. Takes part in the Salon des Jeunes at MCBA.

1966
Granted the authorisation to construct a temporary workshop at the corner of Cour and Montoie avenues on a piece of land that belongs to the Railroad Employees Cooperative Housing Corporation.

1969
Named a certified superintendent for the whole of the canton by the Government Council of the Canton of Vaud to oversee apprentice marble workers.

1972
Creates the liturgical furniture in stone for the chapels at the Montoie funeral centre (built between 1969 and 1972), along with a wall sculpture called Arbre de vie, which connects the two floors devoted to the funeral chambers. Winner of the competition mounted by the Visual Arts Collection of the City of Lausanne, Tommasini is thus part of the network of competitions for public art.

1975
First solo show at the Numaga Gallery in Auvernier, featuring a series of two-part sculptures that explore the theme of the body and the couple. It is around this time that MCBA acquires Dogonto (1974). Francine Simonin, a good friend whom he will remain close to for years, also shows her engraving alongside his work.

1976
Takes part in the second Swiss Art Biennial at MCBA.
Wins 1st prize at a competition organized by the municipality of Épalinges. He creates a monumental sculpture-fountain in Corten steel that will be completed and installed the following year.

1977
Wins 1st prize for a monumental concrete sculpture-fountain for the Place du Marché in Renens, built in 1978. The piece will be demolished in 2021 following
several urban development projects on the square and the fountain’s deteriorating state.

1978
Creates a monumental sculpture in painted Cortensteel for the municipality of Romanel.

1980
Creates a sculpture in red New Rubin granite for the university hospital in Lausanne (CHUV).

1982
Second solo show at the May Gallery in Lausanne for which he creates some 30 marble sculptures.

1983
Creates a Corten-steel sculpture for Collège de la Planta in Chavannes and a New Rubin granite fountain titled Face à face on Rue de l’Ale in Lausanne. Travels to England with Suzon and meets the sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986) whose work Tommasini admires.

1984
Takes part in the group show Format, held at MCBA. Creates a New Rubin granite sculpture for the new Fides headquarters on Avenue de Rumine 37 in Lausanne.

1986
Completes two commissioned wall compositions. One is for the Philip Morris headquarters in Lausanne, carved in Carrara marble and Juparana granite; the other, for the Hôtel Agora in Lausanne, combines Cristallina marble and stainless steel.

1987
Personal exhibition at the Pierre Gianadda Foundation in Martigny. The sculpture Expansion II (1984), acquired by the Cantonal commission for cultural activities for MCBA in 1987, is one of the works on display. Claude Huber, with whom Tommasini started collaborating in the early 1980s, takes the photographs of his works that are published in the accompanying catalogue.

1989
Personal exhibition at the Jade Gallery in Colmar.

1991
Takes part in three group exhibitions, i.e., Sculpture suisse en plein air 1960-1991 at the Gianadda Foundation; an exhibition in Meyrin; and Swiss Art 1991: Celebrating 700 Years of the Confederation in Washington, D.C. Creates a Carrara marble sculpture for the Compagnie vaudoise d’électricité in Morges. The 60-year-old Tommasini has begun gradually reducing his participation in competitions and decreasing his output of monumental sculptures. The following year he suffers a heart attack that forces him to slow down his art activities.

1993
Takes part in the Bex & Arts 5th Triennial of Contemporary Sculpture.

2002
Organises an exhibition of his sculpture alongside photographs by Claude Huber at the gallery of the Clinique de La Source in Lausanne.

2009
Ends his activities as a marble worker and sculptor, terminates his lease for his Montoie studio, and arranges to have it taken down. He continues, however, to draw and make collages.

2011
Dies in Lausanne, 13 September

2013
Suzanne Tommasini-Wyssbrod organises a posthumous
exhibition at the Ferrari Art Gallery in Vevey. Having worked alongside Tommasini from the very first, she carries on the task of systematically archiving and overseeing her husband’s output.

2023
MCBA is given a collection of 34 sculptures, drawings, and models by André Tommasini following the death of Suzanne Tommasini-Wyssbrod in 2022.