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The Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’


The Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’ in Winterthur is one of the most important private collections of the twentieth century. Oskar Reinhart (1885–1965) had a keen eye for fine European art from the fourteenth to the early twentieth centuries. However, he was mainly interested in nineteenth-century French art, particularly the Impressionists. To that core interest he added individual works from earlier periods.      
His house, the Villa ‘Am Römerholz’, built from 1915 to 1918, and its picture gallery, which was added in 1925, were bequeathed to the Swiss Confederation, along with the works of art that now constitute the Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’. The villa and its historic grounds offer a stunning setting for this outstanding collection. Today the site also includes a café, so offering food for the body as well as the mind.

 

 

The picture gallery, Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’ The picture gallery, Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’

  

General information

We are happy to answer specific questions about the Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’, even during its modernisation. Please contact us by post or telephone at the address or telephone number given below. Orders for publications relating to the Römerholz Collection can also be placed by post or telephone at the same address or telephone number:

Address

Oskar Reinhart Collection 'Am Römerholz'
Haldenstrasse 95
CH-8400 Winterthur
T  +41 52 269 27 40 (Information)
T  +41 52 269 27 41 (Secretary's office and administration)
F  +41 52 269 27 44
E sor@bak.admin.ch

www.roemerholz.ch

 

Villa ‘Am Römerholz’ with surrounding grounds and museum café Villa ‘Am Römerholz’ with grounds and museum café

 

  

Oskar Reinhart (1885–1965)

Oskar Reinhart was the descendant of a dynasty of traders from Winterthur. His father, Theodor Reinhart (1849–1919), ran the family firm of Volkart Brothers, which had been established by his wife’s side of the family, and was responsible for developing strong trading links between India and the company. The firm was one of the first businesses in Switzerland, or indeed in Europe, to do so. In keeping with the economic life of Winterthur, which had traditionally been dominated by the textile industry, the company concentrated on the cotton trade.
     Apart from his business, Theodor’s main interest was art. Oskar Reinhart was privileged to grow up among the young Swiss and German artists for whom his father acted as patron. It was not until 1924, when he was thirty-nine, that Oskar was able to fulfil his dream of becoming a full-time art collector when he left the family business.
     In the same year he purchased the Villa ‘Am Römerholz’ as both a place of residence and a home for the art collection that he had built up over the last few years. Holding true to his wish to use his art collection for the benefit of the public, he donated, as early as 1940, his collection of eighteenth- to twentieth-century German, Swiss and Austrian art to the city of Winterthur. Since 1951 these works have been on display at the Museum Oskar Reinhart am Stadtgarten. In 1958 he made a will bequeathing the remaining part of his collection and the Villa ‘Am Römerholz’ to the Swiss nation. The collection was opened to the public in 1970.

Oskar Reinhart in the picture gallery of the Villa ‘Am Römerholz’, around 1960

Oskar Reinhart in the picture gallery of the Villa ‘Am Römerholz’, around 1960

  

The collection

The Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’ in Winterthur comprises around 200 works of European art dating from the fourteenth to the early twentieth centuries. The principal strength of the collection is French painting of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, supplemented by individual examples of earlier art. Oskar Reinhart’s ambition was always to acquire only the best pieces that were available at the time, and, following this principle, the Winterthur businessman put together one of the most important private collections of the twentieth century. Together with his former home, a villa built between 1915 and 1925 on elevated ground on the edge of woods, the Römerholz Collection today makes a small but harmonious artistic whole.

 

General nature of the collection

The works in the collection

 

   

The architecture

The Geneva-based architect Maurice Turrettini (1878–1932) built the Villa ‘Am Römerholz’ between 1915 and 1918 in a grand style that drew on past buildings for Jakob Heinrich Ziegler-Sulzer (1859–1930), an industrialist from Winterthur, on an elevated site at the edge of the forest. As a model he followed the architecture built for the upper classes that had grown up in the green spaces on the periphery of cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In 1925 Turrettini was commissioned by Oskar Reinhart, the villa’s new owner, to add a gallery to house his art collection.      
In the late 1960s, after the death of Oskar Reinhart, the villa was renovated to make sure the museum conformed to modern standards. Fundamental alterations were made to the original building, especially the place of residence. The Zurich-based architects Annette Gigon and Mike Guyer, who were entrusted with the renovation of the site from 1996 to 1998 by the Swiss Confederation, restored the former character of the building, which had been sacrificed when the villa was converted into a museum, by putting back some of the original features and reconstructing the close links to the splendid grounds. In the area between the villa and the new picture gallery, the architects created three new exhibition rooms. Here they gave free rein to their contemporary ideas, while also respecting the aim of the original architecture. The result is a harmonious building combining both old and new.

 

 

Publications about the collection

 

Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’, Winterthur: Complete Catalogue

Edited by Mariantonia Reinhard-Felice for the Federal Office of Culture, Berne, in association with the Swiss Institute for Art Research, Zurich
712 pp., 25 x 30 cm, cloth cover with dust jacket, 237 colour illustrations and 251 b/w illustrations
German edition, published by Schwabe Verlag Basel, Basle, 2003: ISBN 978-3-7965-1952-9
English edition, published by Schwabe Verlag Basel, Basle, and Paul Holberton Publishing, London, 2005: ISBNs 978-3-7965-2132-4 and 978-1-903470-38-1 respectively
140 Swiss francs/98 euros (not including p & p)

Experts have analysed 207 works in the collection according to iconographic and stylistic criteria, taking into account the function and historical context of each work. Using both traditional art-history methods and technical painting analyses, they have often revised previous assessments. Many works have been reattributed, former connections have been reinterpreted and previously disregarded aspects of the content have been noted. The catalogue thus provides the most impressive and comprehensive presentation of the collection thus far, arguably setting new standards.

 

Available from:
Schwabe AG Verlag
Verlagsauslieferung
Farnsburgerstrasse 8
CH-4132 Muttenz
T +41 61 467 85 75
F +41 61 467 85 76
E auslieferung@schwabe.ch

www.schwabe.ch

 

Paul Holberton Publishing
89 Borough High Street
London, SE1 1NL, GB
T +44 207 407 0809
F +44 207 407 8345
www.paul-holberton.net

 

A new publication about the Römerholz Collection:

100 Masterworks from the Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’, Winterthur: Abridged Catalogue

Edited by Mariantonia Reinhard-Felice on behalf of the Federal Office of Culture, Berne
An English/German/French/Italian co-publication by the Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’, Winterthur, an institution of the Federal Office of Culture, and by Schwabe Verlag Basel, 2008. Trade edition: ISBN 978-3-7965-2244-4

This is an abridged version of the Complete Catalogue published in German in 2003 and English in 2005. It is aimed at a wider public, with concise, easily accessible texts in four languages (English, German, French, Italian) commenting on 100 works in the collection. The selected works in various genres are sumptuously illustrated in full colour. The brief commentaries were produced in collaboration with the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, whose collection is connected with the one at the Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz,’ and also the works at the Museum Oskar Reinhart am Stadtgarten through the friendship of Hugo Tschudi and Oskar Reinhart.

 

Available from:
Schwabe AG
Verlagsauslieferung
Farnsburgerstrasse 8
CH-4132 Muttenz
T +41 61 467 85 75
F +41 61 467 85 76
E auslieferung@schwabe.ch

www.schwabe.ch

 

Margret Stuffmann, Norbert Miller and Karlheinz Stierle, Eugène Delacroix: Reflections: Tasso in the Madhouse
Edited by Mariantonia Reinhard-Felice, Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’, on behalf of the Federal Office of Culture, Berne
A co-publication by the Swiss Confederation, represented by the Federal Office for Construction and Logistics, on the occasion of an exhibition at the Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’, Winterthur, an institution of the Federal Office of Culture, and by Hirmer Verlag, Munich, 2008. English trade edition: ISBN 978-3-7774-4525-0

The Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’ presented an extensive selection of paintings related to Delacroix’s Tasso in the Madhouse (1839), offering a new look at a work from its own collection that occupies a key position in the history of art. Covering a wide range of themes, the exhibition and the accompanying catalogue explored this exceptional artist’s struggle to find an identity for himself on the threshold of modernism.

In the aftermath of the crises and upheavals during the Enlightenment, French Revolution and Restoration, Delacroix, like many of his contemporaries, set out to discover new approaches in art. This is evident in the diverse themes found in the work of the French Romanticist, aspects that reflect his visual struggle to define himself as an artist. In the process, he focused on prominent figures from literature and art who represent tragically flawed embodiments of intellectual creativity – figures such as Goethe’s Faust, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Cervantes’s Don Quixote, a visionary doomed to failure, and the melancholic Michelangelo, who were all important subjects of his works. In the figure of the poet Tasso, adapted from Goethe and Byron, Delacroix found fertile ground for his ideas about creative individuals that were based on his own life. At the same time, by appropriating these figures, Delacroix was able to reach a new, highly individual understanding of mythology, history, religion and nature. Throughout his work, Delacroix continued to develop certain motifs that became constants in his oeuvre. With high-quality colour plates, the catalogue makes a valuable contribution to understanding this dramatic period in the history of nineteenth-century art.

 

Available from:
Schwabe AG
Verlagsauslieferung
Farnsburgerstrasse 8
CH-4132 Muttenz
T +41 61 467 85 75
F +41 61 467 85 76
E auslieferung@schwabe.ch

www.schwabe.ch

 

Venite, adoremus: Geertgen tot Sint Jans and the Adoration of the Kings

Edited by Mariantonia Reinhard-Felice, Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’, on behalf of the Federal Office of Culture, Berne. With essays by Stephan Kemperdick and Jochen Sander, Heike Stege and Patrick Dietemann, and Bruno Heimberg and Mariantonia Reinhard-Felice
     A co-publication by the Swiss Confederation, represented by the Federal Office for Construction and Logistics, on the occasion of an exhibition at the Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’, Winterthur, an institution of the Federal Office of Culture, and by Hirmer Verlag, Munich, 2007. English trade edition: ISBN 978-3-7774-4025-5

The catalogue was published on the occasion of the second ‘In Focus’ exhibition put on by the Oskar Reinhart Collection. It explores the relationship between The Adoration of the Kings painting (dated around 1495 and thoroughly restored for the project) and Geertgen tot Sint Jans, the first great painter of the northern Netherlands. It made an in-depth comparison between the Winterthur Adoration and other securely attributed works by Geertgen, especially other versions of the same subject matter. The conclusion was that the Winterthur Adoration should be attributed to another artist, a follower of Geertgen. The publication thus gives an authoritative answer to the long-standing, highly controversial debate about the authorship of this work. At the same time, it offers an overview of the first Netherlandish painters.

Available from:
Hirmer Verlag
Nymphenburger Straße 84
D-80636 München
T +49 89 121 51 60
F +49 89 121 51 610
E info@hirmerverlag.de
www.hirmerverlag.de

 

Juliet Wilson-Bareau and Malcolm Park, Division and Revision: Manet’s Reichshoffen Revealed

Edited by Mariantonia Reinhard-Felice for the Federal Office of Culture, Berne
Revised English edition, published by Paul Holberton Publishing, London, March 2008: ISBN 978-1-903470-77-0

First published in German in 2005 for the exhibition Manet trifft Manet. Geteilt, wiedervereint (Manet Meets Manet: Divided, Reunited), this publication by the Römerholz Collection is now available in a revised and expanded English edition. During the exhibition, Manet’s Au Café from the Römerholz Collection was shown alongside his Corner of a Café-concert (signed and dated 1878) from the National Gallery in London for the first time. Originally the two paintings formed a single canvas that Manet called Reichshoffen.

 

Available from:
Paul Holberton Publishing
89 Borough High Street
London, SE1 1NL, GB
T +44 207 407 0809
F +44 207 407 8345
www.paul-holberton.net

 

 

Links to other Winterthur museums



www.kunstinwinterthur.ch

© 2009 Federal Office of Culture, Berne, and the translators / Imprint