Fred Fay
Fred Fay was a Swiss painter, printmaker and art educator whose career became closely associated with the Valais. Born in Basel on 7 July 1901, he received his early artistic training from his father, Ernest Fay, a heraldic painter, before studying at the École des beaux-arts in Geneva. He continued his studies in Florence in 1922 and spent time in Berlin and Stuttgart in 1923.
Fay exhibited for the first time in Geneva in 1918 and subsequently showed his work in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe. From the mid-1920s onward, the Valais became the principal focus of his artistic activity.
Working across a wide range of media, Fay produced paintings, woodcuts and lithographs as well as illustrations, murals, stained glass and stage designs. His subjects included landscapes, portraits and still lifes, with the landscape and people of the Valais featuring prominently in his work. As an illustrator and printmaker, he contributed wood engravings to publications by Swiss writers including C. F. Ramuz and Gonzague de Reynold. In 1930 he founded and became president of the Société des graveurs de la Suisse latine.
Fay also played an important role in art education in the Valais. After teaching drawing and painting at Montana during the 1940s, he founded the École des beaux-arts du Valais at Saxon in 1949. The school moved to Sion in 1952 and, under Fay’s direction, welcomed teachers including Oskar Kokoschka, Alberto Sartoris and Willy Vuilleumier. Fay remained its director until his retirement in 1972.
Fred Fay died in Sion on 1 June 1987. His extensive personal and professional archive is preserved by the Archives de l’État du Valais, and his work is represented in Swiss institutional collections including the Musée d’art et d’histoire de Genève and the Banque Cantonale du Valais collection.
