Franz Gertsch (1930-2022) is seen as a Swiss pioneer of photorealism and a master of the modern woodcut. The retrospective Franz Gertsch. Blow-up, shown in two parts in the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Museum Franz Gertsch, offers an overview of an artistic career lasting more than sixty years, including monumental paintings of the youth and music scene from the 1970s, iconic portraits of women from the 1980s, family paintings and portraits of artist friends, epic landscapes and images of nature.

In the Kunstmuseum Bern the focus is on the years between 1956 and 2021, creating familiar insights, but also illuminating new aspects and perspectives for the reception of Gertsch’s works. The exhibition shows Gertsch’s stylistic development, and goes on to reveal the thematic lines and cross-connections within his œuvre.

These include the relationship between humanity and nature, as well as the role of photography in painting, which are today acquiring a new significance in the context of ecological and humanitarian crises and in the age of the selfie.