Embracing the certainty that art has the power to take us to the most diverse spaces and times for wonderful things to happen, Swatch has decided to partner with the world-renowned Tate galleries. Both companies, the watchmaking and the cultural one, thus take a new and decisive step in their obsession with democratizing and bringing more art to more people. They do it through the Swatch Art Journey and its new range of masterpieces ready to wear on the wrist of the collection. It is the Swatch x Tate Gallery with works by Miró, Chagall, Turner, Léger, Matisse, Barns-Graham and Bourgeois, which were presented in London with the immersive experience (three days and free for the public who was in time to take their entry before the announced sold out) that reproduced on a large scale both the chosen works and the beat of the clocks inspired by them.
This new provocation from Swatch and its celebration of art, time and life begins with a nod to J. M. W. Turner, who is often spoken of as the father of modern art for his unique brushstroke and use of color that continues to surprise even today. today. One of its most iconic scenes, that scarlet sunset, dresses Turner’s Scarlet Sunset watch, whose dial the creative use of the calendar wheel provides additional depth, with the sun changing color over 14 days until the cycle start again.
Chagall’s Blue Circus captures Chagall’s (considered one of the first modernists) fascination with chaos and circus colors, which he referred to as “magical spectacles that appear and disappear as if they were worlds.” Through the bright and vibrant blue of the strap and the dial and a balanced moon and eye located at the ends of the hands, the dynamism of the acrobats is recreated.
There is also room for Joan Miró, and the shapes, abstraction and bright colors that exude his unmistakable style. Images festively placed on the dial and strap build the Miro’s women and bird in the moonlight watch to recreate the iconic oil painting Woman and Bird in the Moonlight that can be admired in the Tate Gallery. The indices printed on the glass protrude from the artwork to add depth and dimension to the composition.
Another of the chosen works is Two women holding flowers by Fernand Léger, who triumphed with his style, based on the separation between color and line (the color is separated from the drawing itself and agglomerated in different parts of the canvas). The watch that recreates those two women holding Léger flowers takes those bright, bright tones and brings them together mainly on the strap and the dial. Its needles, in three different colors, add additional shine to the composition.
In this new and surprising collection from Swatch in collaboration with the Tate, there is no lack of a nod to Henri Matisse, the French artist who helped revolutionize art at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in painting. Creator of Fauvism, a disruptive and influential style that combined bright colors with loose brushstrokes, his latest works (and his ingenious paper cuts) enjoyed special popularity. Matisse’s snail watch collects the painter’s famous image of the snail on the dial and also spreads it along the transparent strap.
The collection continues with a tribute to the paintings of the British artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, overflowing with rich colors and energetic and fluid brushstrokes, as well as her obsession for her art to capture “a celebration of life… joy and the importance of color, texture, energy and vitality with awareness of space and construction.” That’s the reason for Barns-Graham’s orange and red on pink. On its dial, the categorical black indexes highlight the powerful energy of this work of art and undoubtedly reflect the joy of life typical of Swatch and the painter in a decisive invitation to immerse time in a riot of color.
And French-American artist Louise Bourgeois, best known for her large-scale sculptures and installations while also being a skilled painter and printmaker obsessed with spirals, inspires the seventh and final watch in this new collection. That movement of the spirals outwards that according to the artist symbolized “exercising control, trust and positivity, but also the fear of losing them” synthesizes the strength of Bourgeois’s spirals, with a Swatchpay function that allows payments to be made with a simple movement of doll.
