Switzerland has many first-class art museums. There are fine city museums in the larger metropolises like Zurich and Basel. There are other museums like the Beyeler Foundation and the Tinguely Museum in Basel, the Paul Klee Center in Bern, and the E.L. Kirchner Museum in Davos, where specially-created buildings by architects like Renzo Piano (Beyeler and Klee) and Mario Botta (Tinguely) offset the art. And there are major private collections housed in historic buildings, like Lucerne’s Rosengart Collection with 125 works by Klee and some 50 by Picasso among other greats.
The following are two top-tier collections shown in collectors’ homes, the one an opulent house set on large grounds, the other bourgeois comfy with a leafy garden, that have been converted into museums. Both are in Winterthur, a half-hour’s train journey from Zurich City with frequent connections. In Winterthur, a special museum shuttle bus (fare 5 francs - $4.90 - round trip) at the station drops passengers off at all the city’s museums and gets them back to the station.
Oskar Reinhart’s ‘’Am Römerholz’’ And ‘’Am Stadtgarten’’
The grand premises Reinhart lived in, ‘’Am Römerholz’’, are presently closed for renovation – so a selection of Old Masters and Impressionists normally on show at the mansion are, until August 1, 2010, being exhibited with paintings by German and Swiss artists in the Oskar Reinhart Museum ‘’Am Stadtgarten’’ which opened during the collector’s lifetime.
Missing seeing works in their original residential setting has its compensations, says the museum’s website: this is ‘’a unique event, and one which is unlikely to recur in this form for decades to come. For the duration of the exhibition entitled In Dialogue - The Two Oskar Reinhart Collections, Winterthur, visitors will have an opportunity to enjoy the paintings which Oskar Reinhart collected between 1920 and 1960 as an ensemble of works that has evolved over time.’’ The show features 280 paintings organized thematically, and the site illustrates how within those themes individual paintings from the two separate collections are juxtaposed to yield insightful contrasts.
Tuesday 10 a.m. -8 p.m.; Wednesday -Sunday 10 a.m. -5 p.m. Entry is 15 Swiss francs ($14.65). For holiday opening hours and group tours, including guided tours in English, go to the website.
Villa Flora
The charming house, garden and collection of Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser have been described as a Gesamtkunstwerk, which means that as an ensemble they constitute an art work. Which is not to imply that the collection the couple assembled doesn’t stand on its own, because it is breathtaking both for its quality and the number of works by individual artists such as Bonnard, Cézanne, Maillol, Manguin, Marquet, Matisse, Redon, Renoir, Rodin, Rouault, Roussel, Toulouse-Lautrec and Vuillard. Well-represented too are Swiss artists Giovanni Giacometti, Ferdinand Hodler and Félix Vallotton.
An exhibition entitled 'Vive La Peinture!' starts on October 29, 2009 and runs through to April 5, 2010. Tuesday-Saturday, 2-5 p.m.; Sunday 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Entry 12.50 Swiss francs ($12.20). Check the website or holiday opening hours and group tours, including guided tours in English.
Another Must: Zurich’s E. G. Bührle Foundation
This is cheating a little bit, since the period villa housing art from the Emil Georg Bührle collection wasn’t actually the German-born Swiss industrialist’s home; he lived next door and stored some of his art here. After his death in 1956, his family created a foundation incorporating about 200 representative works and opened the villa to the public. While medieval sculpture, Gothic altarpieces, and Old Masters constitute important parts of the collection, major works by Impressionists like Degas, Monet and Renoir, Post-Impressionists like Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh, and ‘’Post-Posts’’ like Bonnard, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, Braque, Chagall, Matisse, Modigliani and Picasso, are the chief drawing card here.
Open the first Wednesday and third Sunday of every month, when guided tours take place in German. Entry is 25 Swiss francs ($24.40), and you must register ahead. For groups, including guided tours in English, check buehrle.ch. The museum is just a short tram ride from city center.
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