A collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces built up by Zurich arms dealer Emil Georg Bührle (1890-1956) is on display for the first time at Lausanne’s Fondation de l’Hermitage museum. The exhibition also features a room of archive and biography material that aims to shed light on the controversial industrialist and his collection.
Some 54 paintings, including famous works by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet, Degas, Sisley, Picasso and Modigliani are on show until October 29 at the Lausanne art museumExternal link, perched high above the city near Lake Geneva.
In all, Bührle acquired some 633 works of art, mostly paintings. In 1960 after his death, his family created a foundation which brings together a representative selection of 203 paintings and sculptures to display to the public. The other 430 paintings remain in the hands of the Bührle family.
After Lausanne the selection of 54 paintings from the foundation collection will go on tour to Japan before returning to Zurich. The foundation collection is due to be housed in an extension of Zurich’s fine arts museum when construction work is completed by 2020.
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