with JOHANN MELCHIOR WYRSCH, ANTON GRAFF, JOHANN HEINRICH FÜSSLI, JOSEF REINHARD, FELIX MARIA DIOGG, LUDWIG VOGEL, LÉOPOLD ROBERT, ALEXANDRE CALAME, JOHANN GOTTFRIED STEFFAN, JOST SCHIFFMANN, ARNOLD BÖCKLIN, ROBERT ZÜND, FRANK BUCHSER, RUDOLF KOLLER, RAPHAEL RITZ, ALBERT ANKER, OTTO FRÖLICHER, FERDINAND HODLER, FÉLIX VALLOTTON, HANS EMMENEGGER, CUNO AMIET, AUGUSTO GIACOMETTI, PAUL  KLEE, OSCAR LÜTHY, AUGUST BABBERGER, WILHELM GIMMI, HERMANN HUBER, JOHANNES ITTEN, REINHOLD KÜNDIG, SOPHIE TAEUBER-ARP, KARL BALLMER, CAMILLE GRAESER, HEINRICH DANIOTH, RICHARD PAUL LOHSE, HANS HINTERREITER, MAX  VON MOOS, SERGE BRIGNONI, ERNST MAASS, OTTO TSCHUMI, PAUL STÖCKLI, MAX BILL, HANS ERNI, CHARLES ROLLIER, VERENA LOEWENSBERG, MERET OPPENHEIM, GOTTFRIED  HONEGGER, HUGO WEBER, FRANZ FEDIER, LENZ KLOTZ, FRANÇOIS MORELLET, ROLF ISELI, NIELE TORONI, WILLY MÜLLER-BRITTNAU, JAKOB BILL, HELMUT FEDERLE, OLIVIER MOSSET, JOHN M ARMLEDER, ROSEMARY LAING

The exhibition in honour of the 75th birthday presents the Bernhard Eglin Foundation’s 100 most important works in the context of a further 50 pieces from the Museum of Art’s collection. This great Collection display surprises with a special presentation: Artist John M Armleder was invited to curate the big gallery space.

The purpose of the foundation, founded in 1933 by Lucerne Art Society, takes its bearings from the will of the Lucerne lithographer Bernhard Eglin (1830-1922), who lamented the lack of an art museum in his home town and therefore instructed that his estate be used for this purpose after his death. With the resulting capital of what was then 200,000 francs, the museum authorities had within a period of only 10 years assembled a significant collection of Swiss art above all from the second half of the 19th and the early 20th century. From Füssli via Anker and Zünd to Hodler, many of the great Swiss artists are represented by major works.

Around forty years later collecting resumed under the chairmanship of the art collector Viktor Lüthy. He shifted the focus to modern, chiefly abstract Swiss art, which had for a long time been underrepresented in Lucerne. In spite of a lack of Foundation capital, regular outstanding acquisitions were made possible by donations from companies and private individuals. In the 1990s works by the younger generation of artists were added to the collection, and under the chairmanship of Karl Bühlmann since 1998, these have been joined by individual works of international contemporary art.

The collection of prints and illustrations from the Eglin brothers’ workshop represents the collection of the founder, who didn’t – after all – know the collection that was assembled with his estate, and which now fills a whole museum. Thanks to his vision and his sense of citizenship, Kunstmuseum Luzern now owns one of the most prominent collections of the Swiss art of the last 250 years.