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).
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.–