Winterthur - Museum Oskar Reinhart am Stadtgarten

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The museum was opened during the founder's lifetime in 1951, following the conversion of the Alte Gymnasium (built by Leonhart Zeugheer in 1838-42) into a museum. The exhibition, which represents one of the finest collections of its kind, comprises nearly 600 works by German, Swiss and Austrian painters from the 18th to 20th centuries. Swiss paintings ranging from Liotard via Füssli, Graff, Wolf, Agasse, Böcklin and Anker right up to Hodler, Segantini and Giacometti are particularly well represented, and emphasis also falls on German Romanticism (Friedrich, Runge, Kersting, Blechen and Spitzweg), the Biedermeier Period, Realism and Idealism (Waldmüller, Menzel, Thoma, Leibl, Feuerbach and Marées) and Impressionism (Uhde, Liebermann and Slevogt). The conversion of the 3rd floor by the architect Johann Frei in 1995 created additional space for changing exhibitions.

Oskar Reinhart's significance as a collector is due not least to the fact that, after 1920, he was one of very few people who continued to devote their attention to 19th century German artists - at a time when, internationally, French Impressionism had firmly established itself as the sole threshold to Modernism. It is, therefore, not surprising that the paintings and drawings at the Museum am Stadtgarten are regarded as the most important body of 19th century German art to have been assembled outside Germany.