The Collection of Hermann and Margrit Rupf

Curators: Susanne Friedli, Hermann and Margrit Rupf Foundation, and Petra Joos, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
 

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is presenting The Collection of Hermann and Margrit Rupf. This exhibition brings together 70 works by key artists in the history of art during the first half of the 20th century, including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Paul Klee, and Vasily Kandinsky, in dialogue with works by contemporary artists dating from the second half of the 20th century until today.

Hardly any time went by between the creation of works by artists like Picasso, Braque, and Derain and their acquisition by Hermann Rupf, who was personally involved with these artists at the beginning of their careers. The Rupfs were close friends with artists like Vasily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, who gave Hermann and Margrit Rupf dedicated works on important occasions like birthdays and Christmas.

The Rupfs were the first private Swiss collectors to occupy themselves with abstract art. In 1954, they decided to give their holdings—around 250 artworks and numerous art books—to the Kunstmuseum Bern via a foundation. The creation of the Rupf Foundation guaranteed that the collection would be conserved, consolidated and expanded. Without losing sight of the impressive core collection of artworks assembled by the Rupfs, the Foundation continues to expand the collection today with more recent works of contemporary art.

This is the first time that this collection has travelled to Spain, with an extensive selection of works rendered between 1907 and 2016.