Friendship, Collecting, Connoisseurship: Karl and Marianne Im Obersteg-Buess

Some of the letters in this show you read, and some you listen to: actors give voice to Karl Im Obersteg and several of the artists who wrote to him. So you look at the pictures while hearing the friendships they came out of.

Karl and Marianne Im Obersteg were close to Cuno Amiet, Marc Chagall, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Alexej von Jawlensky and Marianne von Werefkin, and to the dancers Alexander and Clotilde Sacharoff. Around forty works and letters show how that circle built the collection. The letters cover ideas traded between friends, help in wartime, rows over copies of works, shared grief, and the couple buying, reselling and brokering pictures.

It is on the Hauptbau ground floor, included in the CHF 25 ticket, and Wednesdays run to 8pm. Across the road in the Neubau, Van Gogh, Hodler, and a Cabriolet covers Gertrud Dübi-Müller, who also took painting lessons from Amiet. Both close on 7 February 2027.