Painting the Hotel Waldhaus Sils
Waldhaus is a five-star hotel located in the Engadine Valley, surrounded by enchanting forest with views over the lakes and surrounding peaks. A family run hotel, and has been since its conception and opening in 1908. The decendants of Joseph Giger and Amalie Giger-Nigg have since continued the tradition in spectacular fashion and it is currently managed by the brothers Claudio and Patrick Dietrich who (along with the rest of the team and family) ensure every guest a warm welcome followed by a an entertaining and luxurious stay. The fabulous landscape and the long list of things to do in the area means you will always fins something to do, and if you want to stay inside the hotel offers a whole range of things to do, from live classical music to the spa and yoga sessions. Each day at breakfast you will have a ‘Tagesmenu’ of suggested things/events in and outside the hotel to keep you entertained on that day.
This hotel is the third stop on my project to paint the Swiss historic hotels, it is a valley that inspired the famous Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler, and isalso home to the Segantini museum which I can highly reccomend. It’s hard to travel Switzerland without seeing a Hodler painting somewhere but Seganitini’s less so. He died young and tended to work on very large works which took longer to paint.
Breakfast at Hotel Waldhaus
Above you can see the painting ‘Breakfast at Waldhaus’ in progress with a generous spread arranged on the table. Whilst painting this I had an inspiring conversation with the Hotel family about Artists working in the hotel and it turns out that Marc Chagall used to come and stay at the Hotel with his wife and mangager. He would rent a number of rooms, one room to sleep in and one room as a studio, so I’m certainly not the first painter to work in my hotel room! (Black and white photo above) This is the stage of the painting where I’m still working out the composition so everything remains quite loose and unfinished. To see the final painting and purchase prints of the work you can follow the link at the bottom of this blog.
Exploring the Fex valley
The Fex Tal is the high valley floor which winds upward behind the hotel and past a few small settlements up the hill. Its remote and extremely beautiful. The day I chose to go and paint the Fex Tal, not only was it one of the only days of sunshine, it also happen to be the day of the ‘Chalandamarz’. This is a tradition from the area wherby the school children (all dressed in traditional costume) march up the valley for the day ringing cowbells (which are carried all the way) and singing traditional songs. It takes up most of the day and they also stop along their way. I knew their route roughly and set off up the valley early to get ahead of them. My plan was to start painting a landscape, hoping to then watch them go past at some point. What I didn’t know was that they would stop and sing for me as they walked past which was very special and just so happened to be the inspiration I needed for another painting. You can read more about the Chalandamarz tradition here. Above you also can see the large painted postcard made of the Chalandamarz. To shop other paintings from the Fex Tal click the button below. There are two new paintings being enlarged from these sketches which will be available to see in the landscape gallery soon.
The Hotel Waldhaus Sils Interior
To buy prints of these works you can contact either Dan or the Waldhaus hotel directly.
To see the originals visit the homepage here
Views from the Waldhaus rooftop
