Maurice Barraud

Maurice Barraud (20 February 1889 – 11 November 1954) was a Swiss painter and printmaker, born and died in Geneva, whose work spans figure painting, genre scenes, and still lifes alongside a sustained practice in the graphic arts. He trained at the École des Beaux-Arts de Genève, and in 1914 co-founded the Geneva artists' group known as Le Falot, a collective that reflected the lively cultural ambitions of the city's artistic community during the early twentieth century. His output encompassed not only painting but also etching, aquatint, illustration, and advertising graphics — a breadth that speaks to both his technical versatility and his engagement with the visual culture of his era.

Barraud's relationship with Galerie Max Moos in Geneva was central to his early career, with the gallery serving as his primary point of representation through the 1910s and 1920s. A solo exhibition at Galerie Moos in 1915 offered one of the first sustained public presentations of his work, establishing his presence within the Swiss art world at a formative moment. His printmaking practice earned him recognition well beyond Switzerland: an etching and aquatint in black on cream wove paper, held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, stands as a key document of his graphic technique and his reach as an artist of international consequence.

The institutional footprint of Barraud's work is notably wide for a painter of his generation. His pieces are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, the Kunstmuseum Thun, and the Collection d'art of La Mobilière in Bern — a distribution across public collections in Europe and North America that underscores the lasting regard in which his painting and printmaking have been held. Taken together, these holdings affirm Barraud's standing as a significant figure in Swiss modernism, one whose formal range and quiet authority continue to attract scholarly and curatorial attention.