Press orientation
Thursday, 24 August 2023, 11 am or individual tour by appointment.

Kunst Museum Winterthur | Reinhart am Stadtgarten, Stadthausstrasse 6, 8400 Winterthur

The Kunst Museum Winterthur presents the first major solo exhibition on the most important painter of German Romanticism: Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). With Kreidefelsen auf Rügen (Chalk Cliffs on Rügen) and the Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (Wanderer above the Sea of Fog), iconic major works will be on show in Winterthur. 

In autumn 2023, the Kunst Museum Winterthur will show Caspar David Friedrich and the Harbingers of Romanticism. The aim of the exhibition is to situate the art of Caspar David Friedrich within the tradition of landscape painting. Always celebrated as the great innovator, little attention has been paid to the question of his idols and predecessors. The juxtaposition with masters of the Dutch Baroque such as Jacob van Ruisdael, but also with Claude Lorrain and Swiss artists such as Adrian Zingg or Caspar Wolf, provides a new perspective on the famous work of the Romantic.  

This is the first ever major exhibition on Friedrich in Switzerland. The Kunst Museum Winterthur is predestined for this groundbreaking exhibition, since with the Oskar Reinhart Foundation it possesses the most important group of works on German Romanticism outside of Germany. The centerpiece is the iconic painting Chalk Cliffs on Rügen, which will now be shown together with other masterpieces, including Wanderer above the Sea of Fog from the Hamburger Kunsthalle and Man and Women Contemplating the Moon from the National Gallery in Berlin. 

The large-scale exhibition presents itself as a “harbinger” in two senses. On the one hand, with a view to Friedrich’s idols and inspiration, and on the other hand, chronologically: one year before the 250th anniversary of the artist’s birth in 2024. 

The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Museum Georg Schäfer in Schweinfurt, where it can be seen in a modified form from April to June this year.

An image-rich scholarly catalaogue with numerous colour illustrations and contributions by leading Friedrich scholars such as Christina Grummt, author of the catalogue raisonné of the paintings, was published by Hirmer-Verlag.