This exhibition recognizes the donation from the heirs of the artist and collector Kaspar Ilg (1921–2011) and his wife Anita (1934–2017), which was made to the museum in 2018. The couple had lived in Hallau since 1974.

The presentation of 90 artworks by 32 artists places Ilg’s works in the context of his collection. They enter into a dialogue with his fellow artists, his teacher Max Gubler, and contemporary Swiss painters such as Ernst Morgenthaler, Albert Pfister, and Hans Bächtold.

A remarkable number of Impressionist and Expressionist paintings and works on paper show his artistic influences. Auguste Rodin, Max Pechstein, and Giovanni Giacometti are just three of several well-known artists in the Ilg Collection.

The exhibition of the donation reveals insightful and surprising connections between Ilg’s interests as a collector and as an artist. The result is a cross-section of examples from nearly one hundred years of Swiss art and its influences—in the words of Kaspar Ilg, “the little golden age of Swiss painting.”