There was considerable confusion when Wilfrid Moser returned for a whole decade to figurative painting around 1975, having been at the forefront of Abstract Expressionism in post-war Paris.
In doing so he focused almost exclusively on two themes: undergrowth and rocks. Clearly his rocks and cliff landscapes made reference to his Carrara period with the white marble quarries along the Ligurian coast. The thumbprint, however, the frames and compositions all pointed to Caspar David Friedrich, whose metaphors shaped the pictorial messages. Existential figuration.
This evocation of rock metaphors (loneliness, expanses of rubbles, battle fields, abyss, memorial stone, but as a quarry and as such a meeting point for nature and culture) was followed by a series of undergrowth landscapes of a kind never seen before, and now in masterful drawings. Ciphers of decay and of the premonition of death. Also, an awakening to new life.
Wilfrid Moser was born in 1914 and died unexpectedly in 1997. His 100th anniversary is an occasion to reassess his later oeuvre from a distance. And the ideal setting for this is the rock and forest landscape of the Schönthal Jura.
Guido Magnaguagno