Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana Hodler – Segantini – Giacometti Lugano +41(0)91 815 7971 Masterpieces from the Gottfried Keller Foundation [email protected] www.masilugano.ch 24 March – 28 July 2019 Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano at LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura Curated byTobia Bezzola and Francesca Benini Press conference: Friday, 22 March 11:00 Opening: Saturday, 23 March 18:00 Press release Lugano, March 2019 From 24 March through 28 July 2019 Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, in partnership with the Swiss National Museum in Zurich and the Federal Office of Culture, presents a major exhibition of works from the collection of Fondazione Gottfried Keller. The exhibition brings together great masterpieces from the collection stored in Swiss museums, including works by Hodler, Segantini and Giacometti. Almost 60 years after it was last presented to the public, Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana (MASI) hosts masterpieces from Fondazione Gottfried Keller, one of Switzerland’s most important national collections of from twelfth- to twentieth-century Swiss art, now managed by the Federal Office of Culture. The exhibition, curated by director Tobia Bezzola and Francesca Benini, the museum’s scientific partner, consists primarily of nineteenth and twentieth century paintings, with significant incursions into previous centuries documenting some of Switzerland’s greatest artists. The exhibition begins with Giovanni Serodine's La Vergine dei Mercedari (The Virgin of the Mercedari, 1620-1625, Pinacoteca Cantonale Giovanni Züst, Rancate), continuing with important eighteenth-century works by Liotard, Petrini, Wolf, Füssli and Sablet and nineteenth-century works by Calame, Zünd, Böcklin, Koller, Anker, Hodler, Segantini and many more. When Fondazione Gottfried Keller was founded in 1891, Lydia Welti-Escher appointed Arnold Böcklin as a member of the Commission, while painter Albert Anker was appointed by the Federal Council. In the exhibition, the artist from Basil is represented by important works including Die Toteninsel (Isle of the Dead, 1880, Kunstmuseum Basel), a famous example of his evocative painting. The painting was purchased for Kunstmuseum Basel in 1920, along with another masterpiece of Swiss painting, Ferdinand Hodler’s Der Auserwählte (The Chosen One, 1893-94), in storage in the Kunstmuseum in Berne, a painting in which the artist applies the compositional principle based on symmetry that was to become a distinguishing feature of his Symbolist painting. The work is exhibited along with the landscape Abend am Genfersee (Evening on Lake Lemano, 1895, Kunsthaus Zürich), one of Hodler’s favourite subjects for this genre of painting. Giovanni Segantini's famous Alpine Triptych La Natura, La Vita, La Morte (Life, Nature and Death, 1896-1899), kept at Museo Segantini in St. Moritz, will be exhibited south of the Alps for the first time since 1899. The painting was purchased by the Foundation in 1911, allowing the Engadin museum to expand its collection of the artist’s works and make them its main attraction. The triptych will stay on at MASI after the exhibition closes, in the centre of the exhibition Sublime. Luce e paesaggio intorno a Giovanni Segantini (Sublime: Light and landscape around Giovanni Segantini), flanked by important landscape paintings from the MASI collection painted around the same time. 1/11 Works by Meyer-Amden and Auberjonois – the first contemporary artists to appear in the collection, in the sixties – Amiet, Vallotton, Itten and Giacometti take us into another century. In the twentieth century, Felix Vallotton and other artists of his time rediscovered the genre of still life, as demonstrated in a 1914 painting from Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne. The exhibition concludes with a sculpture: Alberto Giacometti's Buste di Annette (Bust of Annette, 1964, Musée d’art et Histoire Genève), in which the woman’s face captures all the energy and motion characteristic of the Swiss sculptor’s work. Finally, the exhibition also includes a number of works from the artistic heritage of the Ticino included in the collections of MASI and other museums in the region. These include two paintings by Filippo Franzoni, Self-portrait (1900-05) and Saleggi di Isolino (1890-95), from the collections of the City of Lugano and the Canton Ticino, respectively; the above-mentioned La Vergine dei Mercedari (1620-25) by Giovanni Serodine, in storage at Pinacoteca Cantonale Giovanni Züst, Rancate; and Dame in Pelz (1919) by Cuno Amiet from Pinacoteca Comunale Casa Rusca in Locarno. At the same time as the exhibition at MASI, between 14 February and 22 April 2019 the Swiss National Museum in Zurich will go over the history of Fondazione Gottfried Keller and the variety of its collection through an exhibition of precious items such as specimens of the goldsmith’s art, paintings on glass, drawings, paintings and sculptures from the twelfth to the twentieth century. With the support of the Swiss Confederation, the exhibitions in Lugano and Zurich commemorate the bicentennial of the birth of Alfred Escher, father of Lydia Welti-Escher, who founded the Foundation, and Gottfried Keller, to whom it is dedicated. List of artists on exhibit Giovanni Serodine (1594 ca –1630)/ Giuseppe Antonio Petrini (1677–1759)/ Jean-Etienne Liotar (1702–1789)/ Caspar Wolf (1735–1783)/ Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741–1825)/ Jacques Sablet (1749–1803)/ Louis-Léopold Robert (1794-1835)/ Charles Gleyre (1806 -1874)/ Alexandre Calame (1810–1864)/ Albert Anker (1810-1864)/ Barthélemy Menn (1815-1893)/ Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901)/ Robert Zünd (1827-1909)/ Rudolf Keller (1828-1905)/ Frank Buchser (1828-1890)/ Otto Frölicher (1840-1890)/ Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918)/ Filippo Franzoni (1857–1911)/ Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899)/ Albert Welti (1862-1912)/ Félix Vallotton (1865- 1925)/ Giovanni Giacometti (1868-1933)/ Max Buri (1868-1915)/ Cuno Amiet (1868-1961)/ Alice Bailly (1872–1938)/ Réne Auberjonois (1872-1957)/ Adolf Dietrich (1877-1957)/ Otto Meyer-Amden (1885-1933)/ Johannes Itten (1888-1967)/ Albert Müller (1897-1926)/ François Barraud (1899-1934)/ Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) Fondazione e Collezione Gottfried Keller Fondazione Gottfried Keller was established in 1890 by Lydia Welti-Escher, daughter and heir to politician, industrial pioneer and railway entrepreneur Alfred Escher. Lydia Welti-Escher left the Swiss Confederation a legacy that included the majority of her assets, making the donation conditional on the purchase of important works of art for Swiss museums. The Foundation is named after family friend Gottfried Keller, the famous Swiss poet and painter. Ever since it was established, the Foundation’s statute has required a Commission of five members, still appointed by the Federal Council, with a four-year mandate. This Commission is entrusted with purchasing artworks, which become the property of the Swiss Confederation and, in the spirit of federalism, are distributed among various different Swiss museums on permanent loan. In its early years, Fondazione Gottfried Keller played a decisive role in preventing the foreign sale of cultural assets and bringing important works back to Switzerland. Today, it continues to work in close collaboration with individual Swiss museums to acquire artworks of significance for the country. Its collection is now one of the most important collections of twelfth to twentieth century Swiss art, including over 6,400 artworks in storage in about 70 museums and 30 other institutions in 23 Swiss Cantons. The collection represents almost all the disciplines and techniques of art and the applied arts, from goldsmithing to photography, and also included a number of buildings, such as the San Giorgio monastery complex in Stein am Rhein and Wülflingen Castle in Winterthur, which have since been transferred to the Confederation. 2/11 Catalogue The exhibitions are accompanied by the publication Capolavori della Fondazione Gottfried Keller, published by Edizioni Casagrande (in Italian) with Scheidegger & Spiess (in German and French), presenting colour images of the works on display with technical information by Heidi Amrein, Francesca Benini, Christian Hörack, Erika Hebeisen, Mylène Ruoss, Christian Weiss and Franz Zelger, as well as greetings from federal councillor Alain Berset, a preface by directors Tobia Bezzola (MASI Lugano) and Andreas Spillmann (Swiss National Museum) and an introduction by the director of the Confederation's Art Collections, Andreas Münch. Educational activities In addition to the usual free guided tours taking place every Sunday at 11:00 am in Italian and at 12:00 in German, several cultural activities are scheduled throughout the duration of the exhibition in order to involve the audience and turning the visit to the exhibition into an enriching and emotional experience. The programme is available on the website www.edu.luganolac.ch. Exhibition programme In 2019, the MASI will work on important projects in collaboration with Swiss and international Museums and artists. In addition to Hodler – Segantini – Giacometti. Masterpieces from the Gottfried Keller Foundation , the Museum, in cooperation with the Aargauer Kunsthaus, present a great retrospective regarding Swiss Surrealism (until 16 June 2019). After the exhibition, from 25 August to 10 November 2019, the Museum will present Sublime, a project revolving around the exceptional presence of La Natura, La Vita, La Morte (Nature, Life, Death), the renowned triptyque by Giovanni Segantini, and its connections with a selection