The exhibition’s point of departure is the four-part Engadin-Panorama by Giovanni Giacometti, which is once again at the Graubünden Art Museum as a permanent loan. It was Giovanni Segantini who involved the artist in the great panorama-project for the Paris World Exhibition of 1900, and after the failure of this idea Giacometti painted various panoramas himself. After the panorama of Muottas Muragl (1898) Giovanni Giacometti painted a view of the Upper Engadine scenery with the massive Hotel Palace of Malloja (1899), and as conclusion of these representative assignment-paintings, the famous triptych for the Hotel Waldhaus in Flims (1904). These three paintings set a brilliant beginning to the onset of Giovanni Giacometti’s career and make clear how the painter starts to choose his own way and finds his characteristic painting style.
In the exhibition these works can be viewed jointly for the first time, and it illustrates how a high-ranking artist devotes himself to a specific topic, which is also important from the aspect of cultural history and how touristic ideas were promoted at the time.
On the one hand the exhibition honours Giovanni Giacometti’s artistic achievement and on the other hand it shines a light on the interesting history of commissions for each particular painting. That one of these stories takes us back to the original builders and owners of the Villa Planta, in which the Graubünden Art Museum is today, makes an exhibition at this location especially meaningful.