50 Years of Collecting - Highlights of the Collection

Special Exhibition: 50 Years of Collecting. HIGHLIGHTS OF THE COLLECTION

To mark the 50th anniversary of the KMT, the Kunstmuseum Thun is presenting its first exhibition of the anniversary year, featuring exclusively works from its own collection, from February 5 to March 29, 1998. Museum collections consist of the museum’s own purchases, loans, deposits, gifts, and bequests. The Thun Municipal Art Museum is therefore no exception in the Swiss museum landscape. Friends, patrons, lenders, donors, and artists—those who share a connection to a museum—always serve as an inspiration. They are almost indispensable and highly valued, so that in this exhibition dedicated solely to the museum’s own holdings, the public is presented not only with the museum’s own acquisitions but also with the artworks entrusted to the KMT in a variety of ways. The breadth of the art museum’s collections is demonstrated by the various categories and genres, including paintings, drawings, watercolors, prints, photography, sculptures, and objects.

Although the KMT is celebrating its 50th anniversary, the attentive visitor will find works spanning five centuries in this collection exhibition. The oldest artwork dates back to 1497, while the most recent acquisitions are from 1997. The selection from the KMT’s collections highlights key areas such as early prints, works by lesser-known Swiss masters, paintings from the classical modernist period, and art from the contemporary regional, national, and international art scenes. Over the course of decades of collecting—constantly seeking out new works while supplementing existing ones—the KMT has assembled a collection of which even a smaller, regional art museum can be proud. This exhibition thus presents the public with a representative selection of 121 works of art by 88 artists. The first generation of Thun artists is represented, as is contemporary regional art. Likewise, on a journey of discovery through the Kunstmuseum Thun, visitors can admire works and groups of works ranging from classical modernism to the colorful images of Swiss Pop Art and photorcalism, the bold painting of the 1980s, and the objects and photographic works of the 1990s. So it’s safe to say: 50 years of the Kunstmuseum Thun, but 500 years of visual art within the walls of the KMT.