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The Musée-Atelier invites you to visit the studio of the painter, graphic artist and sculptor Werner Lichtner-Aix (1939-1987).
The museum, opened by the artist’s family two years after his death on the occasion of his 50th birthday in July 1989, affords the visitor an insight into the rooms of his studio – on three floors – which have remained unchanged since he himself worked in them.
Located on the ground floor is the artist’s printing studio containing a lithographic press, on which Werner Lichtner-Aix himself pulled not only the proofs but also the actual editions of his lithographs, and also a copperplate printing press, on which the artist pulled the trial proofs of his drypoint engravings and also experimented. Information panels explain the two printing techniques to the visitor.
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The museum mounts changing exhibitions of works from the artist’s copious oeuvre of lithographs and engravings.
Climbing the stairs to the first and second floor, the visitor enters the artist’s drawing and painting studio, dominated by a large workbench and easel. Changing exhibitions of oil paintings, watercolours and drawings – and also sculptures – initiate the visitor into the art of Werner Lichtner-Aix and enable him or her to re-discover Provence through the eyes of this so gifted painter. |
La Provence
Works of 20 years
Marking the 20th anniversary of the opening of the museum in 1989, this exhibition was the first ever presentation of works that visitors could not only look at but also purchase, this being the wish expressed by many of the museum’s friends and visitors.
Following the enormous interest it has attracted, the exhibition has been augmented and extended until the end of summer 2010.
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1965 to 1969, the annual gatherings of the gypsies in Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, the Corrida in Nîmes, the marketplace, the village festival – these are the themes of those early years.
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The Mistral and Open Landscapes of the 1970s.
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The artist’s last works, produced in 1986 after returning from his travels through Sinai.
Exhibited in the printing studio are over 50 lithographs and drypoint engravings produced by Werner Lichtner-Aix during the years from 1969 until 1986. A technique specially developed by the artist enabled him to lend these lithographs and engravings a painterly quality.
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Werner Lichtner-Aix In order to realize his childhood dream of being a painter, Werner Lichtner-Aix gave up his main profession as a mechanical engineer in 1967. Discovering the small village of Sérignan-du-Comtat in the Vaucluse in 1969, he immediately settled there with his family, making a home out of the remains of a mediaeval castle and spending the largest part of the year there painting. The works produced during the early years in Provence are distinguished by their spontaneous, expressive brushwork and their bright, fiery colours; occasionally they tend towards a genre-like, anecdotal style, at once capturing and caricaturing the moment. During the 1970s, the style of Werner Lichtner-Aix’s paintings now became more tranquil – the “cloud paintings”… |
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At the beginning of the 1980s, Werner Lichtner-Aix purchased a piece of land adjoining his property and built a studio that gave him the “ideal, unspectacular light” he had always been seeking. Travels through Greece, Tunisia, Morocco and, in particular, by bicycle through Sinai changed his perception of the landscape and its colours …
Werner Lichtner-Aix died in 1987.
His last resting place is in his beloved Provence – in the courtyard of his studio.
The works inspired by his travels through Sinai represent the zenith of Werner Lichtner-Aix’s oeuvre. In his funeral oration, Prof. Dr. Rainer Beck said: “It is in his paintings that the primal and the elemental, the untouched and the unspoilt, the cosmically vast and unreachable merge through his sensitive use of colour and light to become a harmonious whole. In spite of his early death, his work manifests an unusual inward equilibrium. He had found, in his art, a golden mean that reached its peak, at the end of his life, in the Sinai landscapes: reduced to their absolute, elementary simplicity, they are awash with supernatural light in all its harmony. As though it were a matter of course, the human being becomes an integral part of this harmony, entirely at one with the elements. His art forever seeks what is pure and unspoilt in a landscape or in a scene from life – its intangible essence.”
Numerous publications and exhibitions have made his name known worldwide.
Musée-Atelier Werner Lichtner-Aix Opening times: from 1st April to 15th October, 2.00 – 5.30 p.m. |
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Guided tours (in German and French) by prior arrangement.
On sale in the printing workshop are books and posters and postcards of the works of Werner Lichtner-Aix.
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Musée-Atelier Werner Lichtner-Aix
Place Werner Lichtner-Aix
F 84830 Sérignan-du-Comtat
Monique Lichtner-Lubcke
info@musee-lichtner-aix.com
www.musee-lichtner-aix.com
How to get to the museum
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