The revival of Albert Anker: from old-school artist to progressive activist

His house in Ins has been turned into a museum and the Bern Museum of Fine Arts is staging an exhibition of his works. The quintessential Swiss artist, much-loved by traditionalists, has found new praise as an early advocate of women’s education. Though little-known outside his home country, Albert Anker is one of Switzerland’s best-loved and best-known artists. Prints of his oil paintings of children are staples on calendars and in classrooms. He also has famous fans. “I often think about his work,” Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in 1883. “I find it so proficient and delicately interpreted. He truly is one of the old school.”   Yet Anker has not always been viewed as a subject fit for serious art history scholarship. But that is now changing. The Bern Museum of Fine Arts (Kunstmuseum) is the latest of several Swiss museums to devote an exhibition to the artist, who was born in 1831 in the village of Ins, near Neuchâtel, and who died there in 1910. Meanwhile Anker’s ...