The Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur is devoting the German artist Anne Loch a comprehensive retrospective. In the 80s the formerly highly regarded painter had withdrawn radically from public life. For the first time the exhibition “Künstliche Paradiese” [artificial paradises] shows the immense, largely unknown oeuvre of the artist who died 2014 in the Bergell.

The artist Anne Loch was born in Minden in 1946, and after her studies at the art academy Düsseldorf worked in Italy for many years. 1984-1988 she lived in Köln and attracted great attention as a painter at a time of “Hunger nach Bildern” [Appetite for Imagery]. Important galleries in Germany and Switzerland represented her and she was well received with her landscapes and still lifes in the context of New Painting “Farbe bekennen” [Committed to Colour] and in the context of “New Romanticism in Contemporary Art”.

In 1988 Anne Loch retreated to Thusis for 14 years and found a new adopted home in Graubünden. The withdrawal was radical both with respect to the art scene and the new surroundings, in which she was hardly taken notice of. Hidden away she worked here untiringly and created an extensive oeuvre. The involvement with nature, the portrayal of landscape in painting, the artificial paradise in its entire frail beauty continued to engage her.

2002 Anne Loch went back to Germany and lived in Duisburg and Essen for some years. She continued producing groups of works she had begun in Switzerland and parallel to these created new works. 2013 she moved to Graubünden again where she died after a serious illness in
2014 in the Bergell.