Solothurn Art Museum
The Solothurn Art Museum is an art museum in Solothurn that opened in 1902 and is one of the city's most important cultural institutions.
history
The museum was founded in 1902 as the "Museum of Art and Science". In addition to the art department, it initially also contained a natural history department. The zeitgeist of colonialism at the time had also captured Solothurn: Solothurn naturalists traveled to foreign continents and exhibited their finds and trophies alongside local exhibits . In the memorandum of 1902 for the opening of the museum, the zeitgeist of the time is reflected, which was also strongly influenced by racial teachings , which Africans and other peoples classified as "primitive". The natural history department contained, partly in the same rooms, in addition to exotic insects, mammoth tooth parts and a marsh crocodile (described in the memorandum without any transition in the middle of the ongoing chapter on this department) an " ethnological collection", e.g. of objects from « Japanese ». In addition, the memorandum mentions an anthropological project to research “Swiss skull types”.
The antiquated department was closed in the 1970s and relocated to a more contemporary “nature museum” at a separate location. The space that has become free has been available to the visual arts ever since . In the garden there are still some exotic trees from the natural history period, including a sequoia tree .
Duration
The Solothurn Art Museum has one of the largest and most valuable collections in Switzerland. It ranges from the late Middle Ages to the present day. The focus is on Swiss art of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, internationally important artists from other countries are also represented with outstanding individual works or groups of pictures. The museum received generous donations from Solothurn collectors such as Oscar Miller , Josef Müller and Gertrud Dübi-Müller .
The highlights of the small old master collection include the Madonna in the Strawberries (around 1425) by the master of the Paradiesgärtlein and the Solothurn Madonna (1522) by Hans Holbein the Elder. J. There are also works by Hans Asper , Jusepe de Ribera and Frans Snyders . The collection provides a broad insight into the development of Swiss landscape painting in the late 18th and 19th centuries: from Caspar Wolf to François Diday and Alexandre Calame to Ferdinand Hodler's late Lake Geneva landscapes. The work of Otto Frölicher , Frank Buchser and Cuno Amiet , who were born in Solothurn and marks the transition between Art Nouveau and Modernism , is particularly rich . The rich holdings of Swiss art from the early 20th century also include works by Giovanni Giacometti , Albert Trachsel , Félix Vallotton and Hans Berger .
The Art Museum Solothurn continues to collect contemporary Swiss art in coherent groups of works. The work of the Swiss iron sculptors Robert Müller , Jean Tinguely and Bernhard Luginbühl is represented. Other focal points are the work of Meret Oppenheim , Daniel Spoerri , Dieter Roth and Markus Raetz . Among the purchases in recent years are works of current Swiss art, including a. by Roman Signer , Silvie Defraoui , René Zäch , Albrecht Schnider , Felix Stephan Huber , Ian Anüll , Peter Wüthrich , Ingo Giezendanner , Uwe Wittwer , Mario Sala and Robert Estermann . Roman Signer realized the kinetic fountain sculpture Stiefel (2004) for the museum park .
literature
- Solothurn Art Museum. With texts by Christoph Vögele, Katharina Ammann and Christian Müller. BNP Paribas Foundation Switzerland, Swiss Institute for Art Research , ISBN 3-90819641-8 .
- Leonardo Bezzola: The Solothurn Art Museum 1972 to 1997. Published by the Solothurn Art Association.
Web links
- Website of the Solothurn Art Museum
- Exhibitions in the Art Museum Solothurn on kunstaspekte.de