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Swiss Art

A highlight of the collection is Swiss art from 1500 to the present day. It brings together paintings, prints, sculptures, photographs, media art, etc. The figurative art includes portraits, landscapes, allegories, history paintings and everyday scenes. The collection of Swiss art continues with the realistic and avant-garde movements of the 20th century, including important abstract works by the Zurich Concretists.

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Hans Asper, Portrait of Cleophea Krieg von Bellikon, 1538, Kunsthaus Zürich, Keller Collection, 1854
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Ferdinand Hodler, The Day, 1904/1906, Kunsthaus Zürich, donated by Alfred Rütschi, 1919
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Henry Fuseli, Titania, Bottom and the Fairies, 1793-1794, Kunsthaus Zürich, Vereinigung Zürcher Kunstfreunde, 1941
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Albert Anker, Two Girls on the Stove Bench, 1895, Kunsthaus Zürich, donated by August F. Egli, 1911
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Paul Klee, Super-Chess, 1937, Kunsthaus Zürich, 1941
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Arnold Böcklin, Putto and Butterfly, 1895, Kunsthaus Zürich, donated by the artist, 1895
Fischli, Chamer Raum, 1991
Fischli / Weiss, Untitled (The Room in Cham), 1991, Kunsthaus Zürich, Permanent loan from Walter A. Bechtler-Stiftung, 2014
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Giovanni Segantini, Pascoli alpini, 1893/1894, Kunsthaus Zürich, 1985
Piilotti, Tastende, 2015
Pipilotti Rist, Feeling Lights, 2015, Kunsthaus Zürich, Dank Unterstützung von Swiss Re – Partner für zeitgenössische Kunst, 2016, © Pipilotti Rist. Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine
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Carl Burckhardt, Venus, 1908–1909, Kunsthaus Zürich, donated by the Sophie and Karl Binding Foundation, 2013
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Félix Vallotton, La Malade, 1892, Vereinigung Zürcher Kunstfreunde, bequest of Dr. H.U. Doerig, with the support of Annette Bühler, 2016
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Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Coquilles et fleurs, 1938, Kunsthaus Zürich, donated by Hans Arp, 1958
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Verena Loewensberg, Bild 17, ca. 1950, Kunsthaus Zürich, Erna and Curt Burgauer Collection, 1979, © 2019 Estate of Verena Loewensberg, Henriette Coray Leoewensberg, Zurich
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Johann Heinricht Wüest, The Rhone Glacier, ca. 1775, Kunsthaus Zürich, donated by Heinrich Escher-Escher zum Wollenhof, 1877

After the advent of the Reformation, Zurich artists mainly focussed on the portrait genre until the late 18th century. In the 16th century, Hans Asper and Samuel Hofmann produced dignified portraits of the city's rulers.

Around 1800, the brilliant eccentric Johann Heinrich Füssli had a decisive influence on classicism and romanticism. He was not interested in imitating nature, but in effective invention drawn directly from the imagination.

In the 19th century, Albert Anker was the most important Swiss representative of genre painting, which was flourishing in Europe at the time and in which the "mood" served as an expression of a psychological state. Also noteworthy are the landscapes of Rudolf Koller and Robert Zünd, through to the fantasy worlds of Arnold Böcklin and Albert Welti.

« The Kunsthaus Zürich is an unmissable hotspot, not least because of its large, world-class holdings of some of the central figures of Swiss art (such as Füssli, Hodler, Vallotton and Giacometti). » — Philippe Büttner, collection conservator
Exhibition view

Ferdinand Hodler and Giovanni Segantini, two key exponents of early modern painting in Switzerland, are honoured here above all with their outstanding landscapes, which enabled them to go beyond allegorical symbolism and find fundamentally new formulations of painting. In the 20th century, the Art Nouveau style of Augusto Giacometti and Félix Vallotton followed.

With the most important museum collection of works by Alberto Giacometti, there is no better place to study the sculptural and painterly work of the Swiss artist of the century than the Kunsthaus Zürich. Dozens of his creations are on permanent display.

Teaser digitale Sammlung

Online collection

Discover the most important paintings, sculptures, installations and graphic works from the Kunsthaus in our online collection. The selection is being continually expanded and complemented by the latest scientific findings. With the generous support of the Federal Office of Culture (FOC).

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