Expression and Abstraction - The Othmar Huber Foundation
10 Oct 2007 - 20 Apr 2008
EXPRESSION AND ABSTRACTION - THE OTHMAR HUBER FOUNDATION
10 October 2007 - 20 April 2008
In the reactionary atmosphere of the 1930s, the Glarnese optician and art collector Othmar Huber (1892-1979) became interested in the avant-garde artists of the classical modern and began to collect work by Klee, Kandinsky and other artists ostracized by the national socialists.
Among the works he purchased were several that had been removed from German museums as "degenerate art". Some months before his death in 1979, Huber placed the greater part of his outstanding collection in a foundation and the works were distributed between the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, the Kunsthaus Aarau in Aargau and the Kunsthaus Glarus. Bern was fortunate in receiving the most valuable group of works, that of the classical modern. In the spring of 2007, the collector's daughter and son-in-law, Helga and Rolf Marti, donated ten further works from the Othmar Huber collection to the foundation, among them five important works by Paul Klee covering all of his artistic periods. In the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, to commemorate this significant donation, we will be presenting the artworks owned by the foundation in a closed exhibition which clearly shows the high quality as well as the coherence of the collection.
The 34 works can be classified roughly into two categories: that of expression and that of abstraction, naturally, these overlap in many instances.
10 October 2007 - 20 April 2008
In the reactionary atmosphere of the 1930s, the Glarnese optician and art collector Othmar Huber (1892-1979) became interested in the avant-garde artists of the classical modern and began to collect work by Klee, Kandinsky and other artists ostracized by the national socialists.
Among the works he purchased were several that had been removed from German museums as "degenerate art". Some months before his death in 1979, Huber placed the greater part of his outstanding collection in a foundation and the works were distributed between the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, the Kunsthaus Aarau in Aargau and the Kunsthaus Glarus. Bern was fortunate in receiving the most valuable group of works, that of the classical modern. In the spring of 2007, the collector's daughter and son-in-law, Helga and Rolf Marti, donated ten further works from the Othmar Huber collection to the foundation, among them five important works by Paul Klee covering all of his artistic periods. In the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, to commemorate this significant donation, we will be presenting the artworks owned by the foundation in a closed exhibition which clearly shows the high quality as well as the coherence of the collection.
The 34 works can be classified roughly into two categories: that of expression and that of abstraction, naturally, these overlap in many instances.