Ann Webb and Samuel Keller in conversation at RAFF 2010
The Film Ernst Beyeler: Art Dealer was screened on Sunday, February 28, at the Reel Artists Film Festival in Toronto. It is a very personal documentary that brings to light the important role Ernst Beyeler had on the international art world. Beyeler, who passed away at his home on February 25 at the age of 88, was the son of a Swiss railway employee who became a widely respected art patron after the Second World War by acquiring hundreds of works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, Henri Matisse and others.
Beyeler was instrumental in creating the world’s largest and most important international art fair, Art Basel. In 1997, the Beyeler Foundation in Basel opened, where his impressive collection is on public view. The building was designed by the architect Renzo Piano, and showcases works by modern masters such as Cézanne, Picasso, Rousseau, Mondrian, Klee, Ernst, Matisse, Newman, Bacon, Dubuffet and Baselitz alongside objects from Africa, Alaska and Oceania.
In this video, Samuel Keller, head of the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, joins Canadian Art executive director and festival organizer Ann Webb in conversation following the Toronto screening of Ernst Beyeler: Art Dealer.
For more information about the Reel Artists Film Festival—North America’s only film festival dedicated to documentaries about visual art and artists—please visit canadianart.ca/raff.
