Arnold Geissbuhler

Arnold Geissbuhler (1897-1993) // Biography

	Self Portrait oil on canvas, c. 1919

Arnold Geissbuhler was born in Delémont, Switzerland on August 9, 1897. The family was originally from Lauperswil, in the canton of Bern, but Geissbuhler’s father had relocated to Delémont, in the French-speaking part of the country, where he established a bakery.

After completing his compulsory studies in Delémont in 1914, Geissbuhler went to Zurich to apprentice under Otto Munch, an architectural sculptor in that city, eventually becoming his assistant. He remained with Munch until 1919 when, on the master’s suggestion, he left to continue his studies in Paris, first at the Académie Julian and then, in 1920, enrolling in Antoine Bourdelle’s classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Bourdelle was the principle disciple of the late master, Auguste Rodin, and had attracted a diverse and talented group of young sculptors, including Germaine Richier and the two Swiss, Otto Bänninger and Alberto Giacometti.

Geissbuhler quickly became a trusted disciple of Bourdelle who first named him massier of his classes at the la Grande Chaumière and, later, his assistant. Geissbuhler remained in Paris, executing many private portraits and several public commissions, until 1929 when he relocated permanently to the United States with his wife, the Boston-born sculptor and art historian, Elisabeth Chase. With the exception of several extended visits to Paris in the 1960s, Geissbuhler lived the rest of his life in the United States.

During the late 1920s and the 1930s, Geissbhuler exhibited frequently, with one-man shows at galleries in New York and Boston, as well as participating in major group exhibitions. He taught briefly at the 8th Street Studio School of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in New York, but soon moved to the thriving artist community in Provincetown, Massachusetts. By the mid-1930s, Geissbuhler had resorted to teaching full-time to support his wife and two daughters. He taught first at the Stuart School in Boston and, later, at Wellesley College, where he remained for 20 years.

In the late 1940s, Geissbuhler moved from Boston to New York. Although still commuting to teach his classes at Wellesley, he established himself in Greenwich Village where he shared a studio with painter Edwin Dickinson, whom he had befriended years before in Provincetown. After retiring from Wellesley in the late 1950s, the Geissbuhlers began a series of extended, annual visits to Paris. These years in Paris were very productive for Geissbuhler. He re-established his friendship with Giacometti and began having his bronzes cast at the Susse Fondeur, whose work was, in Geissbuhler’s opinion, more suitable for the increasingly intricate sculpture he was now creating, many of which he modeled directly in wax, making the bronzes, essentially one-of-a-kind works.

Although he maintained a small, dedicated following through his summer studio in Massachusetts and was represented by galleries in both New York and Boston, Geissbuhler always had difficulty selling his works. Frustrated by the persistent lack of recognition for his art, he effectively stopped working by about 1969, nearly twenty-five years before his death. From about 1969 until 1971, Geissbuhler assisted his wife’s pioneering study of Rodin’s drawings of the cathedrals of France, taking hundreds of photographs of the architectural details that had so captivated Rodin. Geissbuhler spent the last years of his life in retirement at Scargo Pines, his beloved estate in Dennis, Massachusetts. He died in 1993.

Arnold Geissbuhler // Chronology