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Alois CARIGIET

(1902 – 1985)

Alois Carigiet is a prolific Swiss artist, he has been a graphic designer, a painter and a world famous children's book illustrator.
His younger years in the small mountain village of Trun in the canton of Graubünden have influenced him greatly, he aimed for a rural existence throughout his life. When his family moved to Chur in 1911, Carigiet described the move as an "emigration to the low-lands from a mountain boy's paradise to a gloomy apartment in a narrow town alley."
He quit school in 1918 to start an apprenticeship as a decorative designer and draftsman, but spent a lot of his spare time drawing rural and urban scenes, farm animals and pets.
After completed his apprenticeship, Carigiet went to Zurich and worked for Max Dalang's advertisement agency where he learned the techniques of graphic design. He quickly gained public recognition for his work and opened his own studio. In between 1923 and 1939, he created more than a hundred posters: commercial and advertisement posters (his elegant animals for PKZ or Fein-Kaller), tourism posters (as his poster "Holidays in Switzerland" for the ONST in 1938 declined in several languages), educational posters and murals for schools (such as in Inalpe, the ascent to the mountain pasture, in 1934 or the goatherd's departure in 1942, a celebration of the rural life), illustrations and satirical caricatures for the medias.
In 1937, he created a diorama for the Swiss Pavilion at the Paris International World Fair and one of his most important poster in 1939 for the Swiss National Exhibition where the Swiss flag fly above the city of Zurich.
In October 1939, he gave up his business in Zurich and moved into a small farm house without electricity or running water in Platenga, a hamlet in the Graubünden mountains. He wished to dedicate his life to art and observation of the alpine fauna.
After his marriage (1943), Carigiet moved back to Zurich in 1950 where he took up his work as a graphic designer again.
In 1960, Carigiet moved back to the village of his childhood, Trun, where he would spend the rest of his life painting.
Carigiet is also very famous as a children illustrator, especially for the book "A Bell for Ursli" (Uorsin, 1945). The book has been translated into 14 languages and has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.
Its posters celebrate a Switzerland that is close to nature and he often depicts animals with a touch of humour (Delikatessen, PKZ, Fein-Kaller).


Include sold items

PKZ

1936

CHF 1780.–

Pour vos vacances...pour vos loisirs, la Suisse

1937

CHF 1200.–

Tuchfabrik Truns

1937

CHF 1270.–

Ferien in der Schweiz

1938

CHF 1260.–

Libertempoj en Svislando

1938

CHF 920.–

Zürich, Swiss National Exhibition 1939

1939

CHF 900.–

Zürich, Schweizerische Landesausstellung 1939

1939

CHF 950.–

Baden, Die mineralreichste therme des Schweiz

1943

CHF 1230.–

La Suisse Orientale, Zürich

1944

CHF 490.–

La Suisse Orientale, Zürich

1944

CHF 300.–

Berner Oberland, L'Oberland Bernois, Beautiful Switzerland

1944

CHF 550.–

La Suisse Orientale, North-East Switzerland, Zürich

1944

CHF 620.–

Oberland Bernois, Jüngfrau, Eiger, Mönch

1944

CHF 490.–

Les Grisons, Silvaplana

circa 1945

CHF 490.–

Jura Bernois, Fribourg, Neuchatel

1945

CHF 480.–

La Suisse centrale, lac des 4 cantons

circa 1945

CHF 470.–

La Suisse septentrionale, Sarganz

1945

CHF 390.–

Suisse Septentrionale Lenzbourg, Northwest Switzerland, beautiful Switzerland

1945

CHF 450.–

Neuchâtel, Jura Bernois, Fribourg

1945

CHF 410.–

Suisse Centrale, Central Switzerland, Lac des Quatre Cantons

1945

CHF 490.–

Kunstschätze Graubündens im Kunstmuseum, Bern

1946

CHF 1070.–

Kursaal Night-Club, Lugano

1975

CHF 780.–