Gauguin to Picasso, Masterworks from Switzerland: The Staechelin & Im Obersteg Collections

This is a unique chance to see works from two remarkable private Swiss collections. It pays tribute to two pioneering supporters of modernism, Rudolf Staechelin (1881–1946) and Karl Im Obersteg (1883–1969), industrialists and businessmen, close friends, and enthusiastic champions of impressionist, post-impressionist, and school of Paris artists.

Gauguin to Picasso, Masterworks from Switzerland features over sixty celebrated paintings from their collections, created during the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century by twenty-two world-famous artists.

Masterpieces include Paul Gauguin’s Nafea faa ipoipo (When will you Marry?) (1892),

the most expensive work of art ever sold, Vincent van Gogh’s Daubigny’s Garden (1890), Pablo Picasso’s double-sided canvas Femme dans la loge / Buveuse d’absinthe (1901), and Marc Chagall’s three monumental Rabbi portraits.

THERE ARE EXTRAORDINARY PAINTINGS

by artists of international stature including Swiss master Ferdinand Hodler, Russian expressionist painter Alexej Jawlensky, works by Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Amedeo Modigliani, Georges Rouault, and Wassily Kandinsky.

The volume also studies how Staechlin and Im Obersteg developed friendships with and influenced the work of artists, and how they came to create two of the most significant collections of modern art in Europe.

About the Author

Dorothy Kosinski is the director of The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Hans-Joachim Muller is an art critic at the German weekly paper Die Zeit and the culture editor at Basler Zeitung, a major Swiss daily newspaper. He lives and works as a freelance publicist in Germany and Italy. Henriette Mentha is the curator of the Im Obersteg Collection at the Kunstmuseum Basel. Renee Maurer is assistant curator, The Phillips Collection.

Review

“This major contribution to the study of collecting as a vital part of art history provides a broader vision of the impact of social and economic changes on the art market”--Paula Frosch, Library Journal “One last look at Switzerland’s $300 million view”--Philip Kennicott The Washington Post “A sensationally good collection of work”--Ari Post, The Georgetowner

Gauguin to Picasso, Masterworks from Switzerland: The Staechelin & Im Obersteg Collections