The Palace Merano turns 120 in South Tyrol with the painter who rebuilt her life there, and keeps her canvas

To mark its 120th anniversary, the Palace Merano in Italy is showing ‘Les Incarnées’ until 15 November 2026, a series of paintings by French artist Marie-Amélie Chéreau, a loyal guest of the house for ten years. She is also giving the hotel a work painted for the anniversary, 5.9 Healing, which will stay on its walls once the exhibition closes.

☰Contents

1. Ten years of stays before the exhibition
2. 5.9 Healing, a canvas gifted for the 120th
3. What do ‘Les Incarnées’ tell us?
4. From HEC and LVMH to full-time painting
5. A grand hotel that opened on 5 March 1906
6. See the exhibition before 15 November

Ten years of stays before the exhibition

The bond between the painter and the hotel is no commission. According to the exhibition’s press release, Marie-Amélie Chéreau discovered the Palace Merano during a very difficult period of her life, and the treatments, the staff and the place itself played a part in her recovery. She has been coming back for ten years. She later rediscovered her Christian faith, which now shapes her painting.

In 2025, Stefano Plotegher, CEO of the Palace Merano, invited her to show a selection from her latest series for the house’s 120th anniversary. The Palace is best known as a medical spa, a world we explore in our full review of the Palace Merano.

5.9 Healing, a canvas gifted for the 120th

Painted in 2026 for the anniversary, 5.9 Healing is an oil on canvas measuring 160 × 120 cm, given by the artist to the hotel. It takes as its starting point John 5:9, the verse of the healed man who ‘took up his bed, and walked’, quoted in the press release. In the background appear the Palace’s coat of arms and the number 120; the crest sits at the heart of a diamond, with two small angels.

It is also a first in her work: never before had figurative elements been so present in one of her canvases. Maximilian Newiger, general manager of the Palace Merano, posed beside the painting, which stays in the hotel after 15 November.

What do ‘Les Incarnées’ tell us?

The series grew out of a dialogue with the Gospel of John: each canvas starts from a verse. The artist first writes signs on the canvas, then covers them with layers of oil, applied with brush and palette knife; the text vanishes from sight without being erased. Each set also echoes a stained-glass window, borrowing its structure and light, and is read from right to left.

The body of work numbers 22 pieces to date, including twelve diptychs and three triptychs, and is only the first movement of a project the painter intends to pursue all her life. In 2026 it was shown under the title ‘Du Verbe à la chair’ (From the Word to the Flesh) at the church of Saint-Jacques-Saint-Christophe de la Villette, then at Galerie 24b, in Paris.

From HEC and LVMH to full-time painting

Introduced to painting by her artist grandmother, Marie-Amélie Chéreau trained for ten years at the École Martenot in Paris before studying at HEC Paris and Paris Dauphine-PSL. Twenty years of senior roles in international luxury followed, up to a vice-president post at LVMH in Hong Kong. The press release mentions a burnout in 2014.

A professional artist since 2021, she has also published a novel, ‘Les Autruches’ (L’Harmattan, 2018). Her canvases have been exhibited in Paris, Munich, Lausanne and Merano, and presented in Miami and Chicago.

A grand hotel that opened on 5 March 1906

The Palace Merano opened its doors on 5 March 1906, after just over eighteen months of building work, to welcome Europe’s aristocracy: a 76-metre façade, 27 metres high. Franz Kafka and Thomas Mann were among its early guests, according to the history published by the hotel; it became a military hospital during the Second World War. For more than a century, a painting, ‘Homage to Beauty’, depicting Aphrodite, has been part of its visual identity.

The anniversary has already had its musical highlight: a concert with the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation on 9 October 2026 at Merano’s Teatro Puccini. The exhibition carries the celebrations through to mid-November.

See the exhibition before 15 November

The Palace Merano has 99 rooms, including 14 junior suites and 30 suites, and no longer offers conventional hotel stays: guests come for a Revital® programme, built around a 6,000 m² centre and a 1,500 m² medical floor. The entry-level option, the Essentiel programme, leaves your schedule free, with Palace Biolight® meals included.

For another view of the town, see the Viktoria Alpine Hideaway, above Merano. And for art in grand hotels, Chiharu Shiota’s exhibition at the Shangri-La Paris shows another way of opening a grand hotel to artists.

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