One of the treasures of the Kunstmuseum Bern’s collection is the significant holding of works of earlier art. The presentation Life in Full. Old Masters from Duccio to Liotard places a particular focus on the Bernese renaissance and early Florentine and Sienese painting from the 14th and 15th centuries.

It includes artistically rich altar panels made by the Bernese Carnation Masters between 1480 and 1520, and the exceptional holdings of works by Niklaus Manuel, who was not only a painter, poet and graphic artist, but also a reformer, mercenary soldier and alderman of the city of Bern. 

Opulent still lifes and majestic portraits made by artists such as Joseph Heintz, Albrecht Kauw and Johannes Dünz, reflect the economic affluence of Bern in the age of the baroque. Altarpieces and fragments from the Italian Trecento and Quattrocento, unparalleled in Switzerland, are also on display in a cabinet. These include a devotional panel, renown and highly valuable, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, as well as works by Bernardo and Taddeo Daddi, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi and the workshop of Sandro Botticelli. 

Curator: Anne-Christine Strobel

Assistant curator: Michelle Fritschi 

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Franz Gertsch (1930-2022) is seen as a Swiss pioneer of photorealism and a master of the modern woodcut. The retrospective Franz Gertsch. Blow-Up, shown in two parts in the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Museum Franz Gertsch, offers an overview of an artistic career lasting more than sixty years, including monumental paintings of the youth and music scene from the 1970s, iconic portraits of women from the 1980s, family paintings and portraits of artist friends, epic landscapes and images of nature.

In the Kunstmuseum Bern the focus is on the years between 1956 and 2021, creating familiar insights, but also illuminating new aspects and perspectives for the reception of Gertsch’s works. The exhibition shows Gertsch’s stylistic development, and goes on to reveal the thematic lines and cross-connections within his œuvre. These include the relationship between humanity and nature, as well as the role of photography in painting, which are today acquiring a new significance in the context of ecological and humanitarian crises and in the age of the selfie. 

Curator: Dr. Kathleen Bühler

Assistant curator: Nina Liechti

Exhibition in the Museum Franz Gertsch 

19.9.2026–28.2.2027

The Franz Gertsch Museum concentrates on selected paintings and themes from the years between 1970 and 2022, with a particular focus on the models Patti Smith, Luciano Castelli and Irene Straub. Gertsch made a total of five portraits of the rock poet Patti Smith, and thirteen of Luciano Castelli between 1971 and 1977. Irene Staub was part of Luciano Castelli’s circle, and was known as a high-class prostitute in Zurich under the name of ‘Lady Shiva’. Other works in the exhibition include large-format paintings of the models Johanna (1983–1985) and Silvia (1988–2004), as well as the important landscape subjects of the forest path (Campiglia Marittima), grasses and the sea as well as selected woodcuts. 

Curator Museum Franz Gertsch: Anna Wesle 

An exhibition of Kunstmuseum Bern and Museum Franz Gertsch in cooperation with Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Humlebæk and Deichtorhallen Hamburg.

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Featuring some 70 works, the exhibition Journey into Freedom. Capri – Skagen – Monte Verità sheds light on the phenomenon of the European artists’ colony in Europe between 1830 and 1930.

In an age of social upheavals resulting from the industrial revolution, artists explored alternative lifestyles and social utopias away from the large cities, and brought subjects such as women’s emancipation, queer identity and the connection with nature centre-stage. The exhibition presents three selected dream destinations and allows visitors to experience the artistic breakthrough into a free and communal future. 

It confronts us with romantic and idealised depictions of landscape alongside naturalistic – sometimes brutal – images of the everyday life of workers, particularly fishermen. At the same time, it brings together art-historical and social issues with surprising contemporary relevance.

Co-Curators: Livia Wermuth and Andreas Schwab

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