COEXISTENCES

Every year, the Kunstmuseum Thun presents an exhibition featuring works from its own collection, viewed from different perspectives. This year, the focus is on portraiture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

As a special feature, the Kunstmuseum Thun is displaying portrait photographs by Jean Moeglé (1853–1938) alongside paintings and graphic works from the collection. This is the first institutional exhibition dedicated to the multi-award-winning portrait and court photographer to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. Jean Moeglé opened his first studio in Thun in 1882 and, thanks to his excellent reputation, soon became a sought-after mentor, for example to Albert Steiner. In Thun and beyond, Moeglé was regarded as one of the finest portraitists and an outstanding landscape photographer. His studio was frequented by Thun residents as well as visitors from abroad.

The exhibition brings together individuals from that era in the form of portraits placed side by side and in dialogue with one another. A multifaceted collection of staged images of people – from farmers to Federal Councillors, from self-portraits to group photographs – unfolds. As photography, painting or graphic art, these human images also enter into new forms of coexistence across different media.