Exhibition Lilly Keller in Ilanz

Lilly Keller (1929 – 2018) was a Bernese artist with ancestors in Thusis, where she spent the last years of her life. As a child, she often went on holiday with her maternal grandparents, who ran a transport and colonial goods trading company in Thusis.

In 1981, she inherited the large barn with stable and hayloft above. Step by step, this resulted in a residential studio and the former tree garden into an exotically planted paradise.

In Bern, Lilly Keller belonged to the inner circle around Daniel Spoerri, Meret Oppenheim, Friedrich Kuhn, Peter von Wattenwyl, Jean Tinguely and Leonardo Bezzola. There she also met the painter, art educator and bamboo researcher Toni Grieb. In 1962 they married and moved from Bern to Montet near Cudrefin (VD), where they turned an old farmhouse into a charming place to live and work.

Characteristics of Lilly Keller's work are the closeness to nature and the consistent involvement of plants and animals in her entire work. And it is the great need for freedom, expansiveness and love and the resistance, the self-will. Respect for products of the human mind, affinity for literature, word formations, automatic writing and new music.

Lilly Keller is one of the "missed artists". She was present in the art scene for more than forty years with a wide range of works. For many years, she regularly showed her works in group exhibitions in renowned venues such as the Berner Kunsthalle and the Berner Kunstmuseum as well as at the art fair Art in Basel. In addition, there were numerous solo exhibitions in renowned galleries. She had also realized numerous works in public space, most of which had emerged from competitions. Her more than a thousand works also include numerous tapestries and several large-scale installations. It was never part of the mainstream. She always fought for equality for female artists and resisted being put in the corner of "women's art".

After the death of her partner Toni Grieb in 2008, Lilly Keller sold the property in Vaud and moved to Thusis for good in 2016. Until the end, she continued to work on her extensive oeuvre and exhibited in galleries and museums. In January 2018, Lilly Keller died shortly before her 89th birthday. In accordance with her last will, the Lilly Keller Foundation was founded in Thusis in the same year. Since Lilly Keller's death, she has been taking care of the extensive estate: paintings, sculptures, collages and large tapestries, which she designed and wove herself over a period of more than thirty years.

The founder's wish was that, in addition to caring for her work, the house and the exotically planted garden would become a lively place. The residential studio and the garden are to be open to cultural workers of all disciplines who work in it for a certain period of time. At the end of their stay in Thusis, they will present the works created in the studio to the public.