Roger Federer as the main motif of a series of works

Edgar Gächter from Bremgarten is exhibiting around 40 paintings with the Swiss tennis world star as the theme In the Altstadthalle in Zug.

The end of the career of Swiss tennis star Roger Federer in London was one of the topics dominating the media in last week. It thereby almost seems to have been planned that an art exhibition on the subject of Roger Federer will open its doors in Zug's Altstadthalle on Friday, 30 September. But this long-planned project was, of course, not coordinated with Federer's retirement from professional tennis, but is simply a providential coincidence, which puts the exhibition in an unexpectedly additional light.

Under the title "Tempo–Colour Impressions about the world-class athlete in tennis", the Bremgarten artist Edgar "Gegi" Gächter is showing 40 paintings with Roger Federer and tennis as their subject, a series of works that was created during a long-term creative phase. Gächter got to know the sports star himself in 2004, after he returned from Australia for the first time as a winner.

"He signed one of my pictures," the artist remembers. "That triggered me to plan an exhibition about him." The first of these then took place for the first time in 2008, in Basel.

Movement and dynamics are central components in Edgar Gächter's tennis pictures
                Photo: gegi-art.ch

Dynamics and facial expressions
Edgar Gächter, who has been regularly present with exhibitions throughout Switzerland since 1985, has now set up a Federer retrospective in Zug. In this series of works, Gächter, one of whose main areas of work is portrait painting, attaches great importance to the dynamic movements and detailed facial expressions of the tennis star. The artist will be donating part of the proceeds from sold paintings to the Roger Federer Foundation, which supports educational projects in the region of southern Africa and in Switzerland.

Edgar Gächter's Federer exhibition in the Altstadthalle is framed by works by five fellow artists from the Bremgarten Art Association. The topics are wide-ranging, from wire art to portrait painting and from abstraction to landscape paintings.

The “Tempo–colour impressions about the world-class athlete in tennis” exhibition is being held in the Altstadthalle Zug. Vernissage on Friday, 30 September from 4 – 9 p.m., also open on Saturday, 1 October from 2 – 8 p.m. and Sunday, 2 October from 2 – 6 p.m.