User:MartinWiescholek/sandbox

The life or Olivier Foss has been rather turbulent. Born in Hanover, Germany as the son of a professor of philosophy and a teacher of graphical Arts, Olivier Foss has bathed in a somewhat cultural fluid since the very cradle, exposed, however, occasionally to the temptation of some scientific alternative. After his secondary education in Berlin, Germany at the Französische Gymnasium, in Paris at Lycée Pasteur and Lycée Janson de Sailly, Olivier Foss became the private student of the artist Fritz Mühsam, then of Paul Colin and of Dupas at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Paris.

Then, he worked in the United States of America with the artists Jacoby and Annot, who organized his first exhibition at the Riverside Museum in New-York. His second one-man show took place at the New School for Social Research.

From then on circumstances forced the artist to accept a number of positions : as poster- designer, book-illustrator, laboratory-technologist, violin teacher, French-instructor etc., activities frequently interrupted by the irresistible urge to paint. While doing all sorts of odd jobs, he exhibited at the World's Fair, at the National Art Club and at the Alma Reed Gallery in New-York and simultaneously, took a course in life drawing under Bridgman, at the Art Students League, New-York City.

Olivier Foss accepted a position as instructor of Fine Arts at the University of Elizabethtown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, studying at the same time for his Bachelor Degree in Science. After his graduation, he taught Bacteriology to a class of nurses at the woman's Hospital of Philadelphia, while working there as a Laboratory Technologist. Olivier Foss finds the opportunity to study Medicine at the University of Basel.

But Art is a faithfully stubborn muse: Foss, at last, decided not to resist against her call any longer.

He leaves the University of Basel, breaking peremptorily with the sciences in order to devote himself entirely to Art.

Back to Paris, he settles down at his atelier in the Villa des Ternes and exposes in 1949 at the Atelier 5, rue Norvins, and at the Galerie Hervé in 1950. From 1951 to 1952, the artist made an exhibition tour through the United States: a one-man show at the Van Diemen-Lilienfeld Gallery, 57th street, New-York, in October 1951; a Boston show in January 1952; an exhibition in Palm Beach, Florida, in February 1952 and in March and April of the same year at the Coleman Art Gallery in Philadelphia.

Exhausted, the artist returned to Paris in May 1952, eager to work and to concentrate in solitude. Again he isolated himself in his atelier, where he elaborated feverishly his new pictorial projects which had haunted his mind for many years.

The artists important exhibition in 1953, at the Galerie Drouant-David, rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré in Paris, under the heading : "Life's Depths and Summits", revealed an astonishing evolution, leading up to the matured synthesis of his ever-present emotions. Each painting shown therein, represented the Ego in search of its redemption, the desperate voyage through the most acute stages of our existence : Love, Hatred, Sadism, Crime and Death itself, in which life's rending conflicts find their supreme solution.

In the year 1956, A. Amante, owner of the Gallery de l'Art Moderne, rue la Boetie, met the artist at a vernissage and offered him an association, in order to present his paintings on an international basis. He exhibited the artist's works regularly, from 1956 to 1958 at his own gallery and at the famous Gallery Charpentier, Place Beauvau, haven of the Ecole de Paris...

With his neighbour, the painter Armand Nakache, he organized in 1961 a large common exhibition under the heading : "Expressionnismes" at the Musée Galliéra in Paris, and, after a one-man show, 1962, at the Galerie Fragonard in Metz, it is Switzerland, which offers the artist several opportunities to show his work : first at the Galerie Goetz, in Basel, 1964, and in the same year at the Galerie Zünd in Sankt Gallen, one year later at the Galerie Manuel, in Bern, and in 1966 at the Heimatmuseum of Rorschach.

At the death of his mother, in 1968, Olivier Foss crossed the ocean in order to spend some time with his father, Professor of Philosophy at the Quaker College of Haverford, Pennsylvania.

He then exhibited at the Gallery Janet Fleisher in Philadelphia and shortly afterwards at the Gallery Lesnick-Walter, on 57th Street, New-York. At this occasion, he met the Film Producer Raymond Stross who offered him a participation in his next film, "Midas Run", which was to be started on the same year, in Venice, Italy. So the artist returned to Europe and took part in the production of "Midas Run", alongside of Fred Astair. Simultaneously, the artist painted a portrait of the producer's wife : actress Anne Heywood, much celebrated then, because of her previous role in "The Fox", and exhibited the very paintings shown in the film, at the Venetian Gallery Paolo Barozzi. Later, but still in the same year, during the "Festival International du Film", the artist opened an other one-man show at the Gallery Raymond Journet at Cannes, which was followed, still in 1968, by an important exhibition at the "Musée de l'Athénée" in Geneva. Back in Paris, the well known Art Expert, Christian-Gilbert Stiebel, got in touch with the artist, offering him a permanent representation at his Gallery, rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré.

Olivier Foss exposed there exclusively, from 1972 to 1974. At this time, a book of poems : "Hinter der Maske" (behind the mask), written by the artist, was edited by Limes, in Wiesbaden. The German Philosopher, Martin Heidegger, wrote about it, that "the thoughts therein express and induct reflexion".

In 1975, Olivier Foss opened his first complete retro- spective exhibition at the Stadttheater of Sankt Gallen. Visitors from all around the Bodensee gathered there, and the official and unofficial comments were very favourable. Back in Paris, the artist exposes in 1976 at the Palais des Congrès, Porte Maillot in Paris. Then he devoted himself entirely to the evolution of his style until 1981 and 1982, when he showed his recent work at the Galerie am Park in Sankt Galen, owned and directed by Ingrid Merz.

In 1984, Fides Foss organized a one-man show for her husband at the Galerie Ile des Arts, rue Saint-Louis en l'Ile, followed up by several exhibitions in Switzerland : at the Art-Gallery directed by Eugen Traber, in Goldach, and at the Bankverein of Sankt Gallen in 1985, four years later, in 1989, at Bad Horn and at the Kurhaus of Walzenhausen. After a period of seclusion and creative introspection, we rediscovered Olivier Foss with a number of new, freely brushed canvases, in 1994 at the Rathausgalerie of Goldach, and from 1996 to 1999 at the Galerie Burkarthof in Neukirch-Egnach, directed by Kurt Schär, accredited Swiss expert of modern art.

Presently, Olivier Foss spends most of his time in his atelier with his students, and in front of some large canvas on his easel, always eager to add to the spiritual content of his work the aesthetic element which all art requires. In his compositions, Aesthetics is so blended with expressiveness as to further the latter, instead of undermining it with confusing and merely decorative details. Psychology, Mythology and Allegory become the working-tools of the artist, who wants to convince his spectator, rather than to mystify or amaze him with a display of the latest aesthetic riddles.A sober and always directly explicit language subdues his own emotions, as well as those inherent in the subject matter, a language he skilfully masters, making use of a stylisation, which increases expressiveness and eliminates at the same time the sentimental, the anecdotic content of his theme. Olivier Foss, who clings with vehemence to the stormy trend of our time, fulfils the challenging task to reveal, to enlighten through his art, the heaviest burdens of mankind. Constructive realism, architectural abstraction, mystical surrealism fuses and solidify into one compact whole of very personal style, intensity and vision.