Art Museum St. Gallen
The St. Gallen Art Museum , with its picture gallery and numerous temporary exhibitions, is one of the most important art museums in Eastern Switzerland . It is located in the center of St. Gallen and houses a rich collection of paintings and sculptures from the late Middle Ages to the present day. The focus of the collection is on Dutch painting of the 17th century, art of the 19th century from Switzerland, Germany and France, Appenzell peasant painting and international modern art . The museum has been run by the Art Museum St. Gallen Foundation under public law since 2012 .
history
The way to your own building
When today's museum building opened in 1877, the municipal collections could already look back on a long tradition. The beginning of these collections is marked by a prepared Nile crocodile, which was given to the city as a gift in 1623 and found its place in the city library. In the period that followed, skeletons, fossils, herbaria and old medical instruments were added, but also coats of arms, coins, busts of famous men, portraits of the mayors and other pictures and engravings that found a home in the former St. Catherine's Monastery. In the 19th century in particular, the number of objects increased due to extensive donations to such an extent that the construction of a building for the municipal collections was considered. Among other things, the St. Gallen Art Association, founded in 1823 , which organized art exhibitions without a permanent establishment, contributed to this. In addition, the St. Gallische Naturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft founded the Natural History Museum in 1846, the collection of which was spread across various municipal buildings. After a first location for a new building on the fruit market had been discarded in 1843 , the conversion of the Zeughaus am Bohl later came up , which ultimately also failed.
It was not until 1867 that the representatives of the five institutions concerned, the local citizen community , the Commercial Directorate, the Natural History Society, the Art Association and the Historical Association came together to form a conference that wanted to implement the new museum building. After the builders had specified the site on the Brühl as the location in 1869 and an architect had been selected with Johann Christoph Kunkler , the finance commission began to collect money from the citizens of St. Gallen by calling for donations. The initially estimated construction cost of CHF 250,000 increased due to inflation to CHF 426,000 within a few years, so that the political community and the canton also agreed to part-finance. In 1874 construction began on the two-story museum in the neo-renaissance style based on the example of the Munich Alte Pinakothek . On October 8, 1877, the new museum building opened to the public. The ground floor was used exclusively for the natural history collections, while the other collections shared the upper floor - including skylight rooms for the painting and sculpture collection. Due to the steadily growing collections, there was soon insufficient space in the museum building and the Historical Association of the Canton of St. Gallen , which is responsible for the cultural history collection of Northeastern Switzerland, and the East Swiss Geographical-Comercial Society , which has been responsible for ethnology since 1878 , decided to move their collections to a new building . This was opened in 1921 according to plans by Carl Adolf Lang and Bridler & Völki at Museumsstrasse 50 as a history and ethnological museum. From then on, the entire upper floor of the now Altes Museum was available to the art museum . This old building had to be closed in 1970 because it was dilapidated. The local citizens' community of St. Gallen transferred the museum properties to the city of St. Gallen due to financial burdens. The St. Gallen Museum Foundation was established in 1978 to run the three museums (art museum, nature museum, historical and ethnological museum), to which the city and the local community also include the art association. After the demolition of the old building had been considered in the meantime, it was reopened in 1987 after extensive renovation work. In 2012, the three founders, the city, the local community and the art association, founded the Art Museum St.Gallen Foundation under public law as the sponsor of the museum. The donors support the museum financially, plus grants from the canton of St. Gallen and from private sources. In autumn 2016, a new building was opened for the St. Gallen Nature Museum on Rorschacher Strasse (near the Botanical Garden), which means that the entire building of the Altes Museum is now available to the art museum .
Building the collection
The first paintings, drawings and sculptures came into the possession of the city rather by chance and these had less artistic value, but were more of regional historical importance. One of the few exceptions was the painting Portrait of the copper engraver Adrian Zingg by Anton Graff , which came to the city of St. Gallen as a gift from the artist in 1816. The earliest purposeful purchase of a painting followed in 1840, when the Kunstverein acquired the painting Autumn Evening near Bouveret on Lake Geneva from François Diday . During the planning phase of the museum, the Gonzenbach family's graphic collection was an important donation with works from Dürer to Rembrandt in the city's art collections.
In the beginning, artist friendships played an essential role in the systematic development of the museum collection. In addition to works by Swiss painters of the 19th century, especially painters from the Munich School found their way into the collection, as numerous artists from Eastern Switzerland had studied in Munich and had close relationships there. In this way, the painting Balgende Buben by Anselm Feuerbach came into the museum in 1878 through the operation of the painters Edouard Hauser and Emil Rittmeyer , who are based in St. Gallen . In 1913, with Susanna in the bath of Franz von Stuck , another significant purchase of a work by the Munich school followed. In addition, there was initially a focus on Dutch painting from the 15th to 17th centuries. At the beginning of the 20th century came with the 1906 painting acquired song from a distance of Ferdinand Hodler , a contemporary Swiss work in the collection. It was not until 1956 that the museum devoted itself to building up the collection of peasant paintings from Eastern Switzerland.
The museum received a significant increase in 1926 with the foundation of the Sturzenegger painting collection . The holdings were housed in the Villa am Berg on Rosenbergstrasse until 1940 , before they moved to the museum building. Thanks to a decree by the founder, it was possible to sell less significant pieces from this collection in the 1930s and, for example , to acquire Camille Pissarro's painting Landhaus in der Hermitage in 1936 , a picture that was previously in the National Gallery in Berlin. In addition, the Ernst Schürpf Foundation has provided a purchase budget since 1947, through which, for example, Claude Monet's Palazzo Contarini could be acquired in 1950 . There were also other foundations and donations.
collection
In the collection of the Art Museum St. Gallen there is only a small inventory with paintings from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance , whereby Swiss painting in particular is largely missing due to the Reformation iconoclasm . The early works in the museum include the portrait of Balthasar von Kerpen by Bartholomäus Bruyn the Elder from around 1538 and the work Der Weg zum Kalvarienberg by Herri met de Bles, painted around 1540 . An example of early Baroque painting in Italy is the oil study Saint Sebastian by Federico Barocci . One focus of the museum collection is Dutch painting from the Golden Age . You can see a still life with flowers and an earthenware jug by Jan Davidsz. de Heem , fruits with parrot by Gijsbert Gillisz. de Hondecoeter , Old Man with Crossed Hands by Salomon Koninck or Drinking Peasants by Adriaen van Ostade . Other pictures in this area of the collection are a tree landscape with cows and water by Jacob Salomonsz. van Ruysdael and Der Kanarienvogel, children playing in front of a group of Hercules by Adriaen van der Werff .
The collection is also extensive with works from the 19th and early 20th centuries. These include works by German artists such as riders and stable boys with hand horses in front of Rottach Egern by Wilhelm von Kobell , mountain gorge with bathing women by Carl Spitzweg , portrait of Nanna by Anselm Feuerbach , portrait of the painter A. Splitgerber by Wilhelm Leibl and portrait of a lady by Franz von Lenbach . The impressionist paintings Self-Portrait with Black Hat and Cane by Lovis Corinth and the painter's studio at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin by Max Liebermann are already at the transition to modernity . The landscape near Kähnsdorf by the Austrian Carl Schuch is painted in a similar way . The museum also shows a good overview of the French painting of this time. Thus, by Camille Corot the images In Riva del Garda and Lake with fishing in his boat , and Jean-François Millet , a portrait of a man to see. Eugène Delacroix is represented with a lion hunt and Gustave Courbet with the works of Lake Geneva , Jura landscape near Ornans and the seaside . French Impressionist works include a river landscape with a boat at Pontoise and a country house in the Hermitage, Pontoise by Camille Pissarro , Le jardin by Alfred Sisley and Palazzo Contarini, Venice by Claude Monet .
Ferdinand Hodler is one of the most famous Swiss artists in the museum . The museum owns the works by him, Lied aus der Ferne (1st version) and Das Lauterbrunner Breithorn (1st version). In addition to the works of this internationally known artist, the museum has been building up a collection of works by Appenzell peasant painting since the middle of the 20th century. Examples of this Senntum painting are cattle pasture under Kamor, Hohem Kasten and Staubern by Bartholomäus Lämmler , Alp Wendbläss by Johannes Müller and Drei Sennen bei Jassen und Hund by Franz Anton Haim .
Works by well-known modern and contemporary artists provide an overview of the development of art in the 20th and 21st centuries. The spectrum ranges from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and his 1918–19 painting Alpaufzug to Imi Knoebel's work Hello Darkness from 2001. Other items in the collection include the watercolor pair of dancers by Paul Klee , the painting Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup by Andy Warhol, and the installation made of lead spirals and iron nails Lead Piece by Richard Serra . Further works are construction from six colored groupings by Max Bill , Tutto è connesso by Mario Merz , Beuys / Voice - A Hole in the Hat by Nam June Paik and Der TV-Lüster by Pipilotti Rist .
Due to the limited space in the museum building, only parts of the collection can be shown. Likewise, the important collection of prints by Albrecht Dürer , Rembrandt van Rijn and Jacques Callot can only be seen in selected presentations. The museum also has several temporary exhibitions every year.
literature
- Rudolf Hanhart: Art Museum St. Gallen . Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen 1987, ISBN 3-906662-01-2 .
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 25 '40.1 " N , 9 ° 22' 53.7" E ; CH1903: seven hundred and forty-six thousand five hundred eighty-one / 254814