Through his father’s con-nections, Théodore was a habitué of Ramuz’s close circle of friends. Exchan-ges between the writer and the painter intensified in 1931 and 1932 when they worked together on the weekly review Aujour-d’hui, run by Ramuz. Théodore later illustrated one of his texts, Le Cir-que, published by Ver-seau in 1936. With a ciga-rette characteristically in his hand, the writer (not reputed to be particularly easy-going) is creasing his brow and narrowing his eyes, as if trying to shar-pen his vision. Philippe Kaenel

Les Fourberies de Scapin, an Italian-style comedy by Molière, was the first book Strawinsky illustrated, in 1935, for the Paris publisher Guy Lévis Mano whose business was enjoying a rebirth after the crisis. This publishing house specialised in surrealist and associated art, but also in illustrations by the Swiss illustrator and caricaturist, Géa Augsbourg, whose clean lines, both incisive and expressive, might well have influenced Strawinsky. Philippe Kaenel

In 1942, the painter took up residence in Geneva Switzerland, at Maison Bonnet, 40 rue du Marché. It is from there that he sketched the old town dominated by the cathedral. In this urban landscape the painter brings out the geometric forms of the buildings. The interlocking and stacked façades, windows and roofs reveal the artist’s fascination with the formal, almost ‘cubist’ dimension of the world and its structures. Philippe Kaenel