LAUSANNE.- In 2024, as part of its 40th anniversary celebrations, the Fondation de l’Hermitage hosts an exceptional exhibition in partnership with the Museum Langmatt, Baden. This magnificent collection of primarily Impressionist works, acquired between 1908 and 1919 by collector Jenny and Sidney Brown, is coming to the Hermitage for its first public display outside its home at Villa Langmatt. Forty years after the Fondation’s inaugural exhibition of works from French-speaking Switzerland, L’impressionnisme dans les collections romandes, the Fondation de l’Hermitage has the privilege of presenting one of the most prestigious collections of Impressionism from the German-speaking cantons. This major event also celebrates the 150th anniversary of Impressionism, which crystallized in 1874 with the first collective exhibition by a group of young independent artists promoting a “new painting”.

Jenny Sulzer and Sidney Brown were each born into important entrepreneurial families based in Winterthour, and married in 1896. While on honeymoon in Paris they bought their first painting, a landscape by Eugène Boudin showing washerwomen near Trouville. This acquisition established their interest in French painting, notably its use of colour and effects of light.

A PRESTIGIOUS COLLECTION

Around the turn of the 20th century the Browns made frequent trips to explore the art of their time and to support artists. The collection is dominated by landscapes and still lifes, including works by Pierre Bonnard, Eugène Boudin, Mary Cassatt, Camille Corot, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Henri Fantin-Latour, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Odilon Redon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley, making it one of Switzerland’s finest and most significant Impressionist collections.

FIRST OFF-SITE STAGE

These masterpieces are now held at the Villa Langmatt, an Art Nouveau residence influenced by English rural architecture. Built for the Browns by architect Karl Moser in the years 1899–1901, the house is currently closed for extensive restoration. The exhibition at the Fondation de l’Hermitage features over 60 of the most remarkable works from the Langmatt collection, offering a unique opportunity to admire these treasures away from their usual setting. The exhibition will then travel to the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne, followed by the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna.

Ground floor – room 1
Early acquisitions: pre-Impressionist landscapes
Boudin, Corot, Degas

Jenny Sulzer, daughter of a family of industrialists in Winterthur, and her husband Sidney Brown, co-founder of the Baden-based electrical engineering business Brown, Boveri & Cie (now ABB), had a shared passion for art. In the period lasting from the last years of the 19th century to the 1930s, they assembled an impressive collection in which Impressionism has a central place.

To display their collection, the Browns commissioned architect Karl Moser, an important figure in Swiss modernism, to build a huge “cottage” with Art Nouveau influences. The result was Villa Langmatt (1899-1901), where they would live for the rest of their lives.

Their interest in landscape was apparent from their earliest acquisitions, during their honeymoon in Paris in 1896. They bought two riverbank scenes, one being Laveuses au bord de la Touques, painted a year earlier by Eugène Boudin. A forerunner of Impressionism, Boudin is known for his vibrant depictions of the Normandy coast.

The Browns’ interest in pre-Impressionist landscape increased with the passing of time. Maintaining their appreciation for Boudin, they bought four more of his paintings, which can be seen in this room alongside Honfleur, la jetée, which is owned by the Fondation de l’Hermitage. They also took an interest in the delicate nuances of Corot’s Italian and French landscapes, seen here in dialogue with the ochre shades of a view of Naples by the young Edgar Degas. Painted in the 19th century by plein air artists, these works herald the Impressionists’ explorations of the fleeting nature of perception.

RdC – salle 2
From the Munich Secession to Impressionist landscapes
Pissarro, Sisley, Monet

Around the turn of the 20th century, Jenny et Sidney Brown made many trips to Munich and became interested in the artists of the Munich Secession. They acquired an increasing number of paintings, often in large format, until Villa Langmatt could no longer house their entire collection. To solve this problem, in 1905-1906 they built another wing containing a gallery and library.

In 1908 the Browns developed a passion for French Impressionism. As they gradually parted with their collection of Munich Secession paintings, the dark canvases were replaced by the radiant works that remain central to the collection today. They were frequent visitors to the Paris dealers, where they appreciated the Impressionists’ interest in fleeting variations of light and plein air explorations. At a time when these artists were little understood by the public, this was a bold choice.

Camille Pissarro has an important place here, represented by six paintings in Museum Langmatt that reflect his artistic development. Châtaigniers à Louveciennes, printemps is typical of early Impressionism, with its juxtaposed, fragmentary brushstrokes capturing a brief impression of the moment. La cueillette des pois, Éragny reveals Pissarro’s exploration of pointillism. Le Boulevard Montmartre, printemps and Automne dans le pré à Éragny were painted near the end of his life and reflect the virtuosity of his late landscapes. These works echo the art of two other great figures of Impressionism, Alfred Sisley and, crucially, Claude Monet, who is represented in the collection by a magnificent winter landscape.

RdC – salle 3
Still lifes
Fantin-Latour, Renoir, Vignon, Pissarro

Alongside landscapes and figures, the still life was one of Jenny and Sidney Brown’s favourite genres, and they acquired magnificent examples by Henri Fantin-Latour, Auguste Renoir, Victor Vignon and Camille Pissarro. The unclassifiable Fantin-Latour is the only one of these artists to have developed a particular interest in still life, notably excelling in compositions depicting fruit, such as Pêches et raisins noirs. This small masterpiece of a touching sobriety evokes the world of Chardin. It is shown here alongside a remarkable bouquet of peonies owned by the Fondation de l’Hermitage.

Unlike Fantin-Latour, the Impressionists did not have a particular interest in the still life. However, the genre did give them an opportunity to explore texture and colour. In Sucrier et oranges, Vignon combines tradition (depicting a variety of materials and reflections) and modernity (vibrant brushwork). The same is true of Renoir in Poissons and particularly Sucrier et timbale, which appears as a tribute both to the French 18th century, in the simplicity of its composition, and to his friend Berthe Morisot, in its colours and sinuous style. Nature morte, tasse et théière, a rare incursion into the genre by Pissarro, is most surprising for its reduced perspective and attention to ornamentation.

While still lifes were little prised in France, they were very much in fashion among 19th century English collectors. Like the “cottage” style of Villa Langmatt, the noteworthy presence of still lifes in the Browns’ collection may reflect their attachment to the family’s British origins.

1er étage – salles 1, 2, 3
The heart of the collection
Renoir

Like many art-lovers of the period, Jenny and Sidney Brown were passionate collectors of the works of Auguste Renoir. But it is unusual today to find the artists works remaining together in a group as large as the twenty-two of Museum Langmatt. This exceptional group is also noteworthy for covering over forty years of Renoir’s art. From radiant figures to generous nudes, Impressionist landscapes and still lifes with classical overtones, all the pleasures of the painter’s work are here.

Renoir is the painter of happiness and its fleeting nature. He trained at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he met Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley, also represented in the collection, and became actively involved in the Impressionist movement.

During the 1870s he focused on portraits (Portrait de Paul Meunier), and particularly on landscapes, avidly depicting the joy of afternoons by the banks of the Seine (La Barque). His male and female figures delight in natural surroundings bathed in shimmering light, all rendered in fluid brushwork. The 1880s saw Renoir return to the works of the old masters. Inspired by Raphaël and Jean-Dominique Ingres, he reinvented his style. The fine Portrait de jeune fille sur fond bleu clair, acquired by the Browns in 1915, is firmly drawn in a sober palette.

This was followed by Renoir’s “lustrous period”, in which his ambitions as a colourist combined with his love of tradition. His fleshy nudes, pink children and opulent bouquets were immensely successful.

Crypt
The power of colour and shadow
Cassatt, Redon, Degas, Fantin-Latour

Jenny and Sidney Brown’s collection reflects their sensitivity to colour. Very often they chose works in which the use of colour is a major facet of the art. They were not, however, interested in Fauvism, unlike their Winterthur contemporaries Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser, whose famous collection was shown at the Hermitage in 2011.

In the late 1880s Edgar Degas began working almost exclusively in pastel. Nu de femme is striking for his use of golden yellow and red. The space is taken over by the warmth of these colours as the body and mind of the model is overcome by ecstasy. Meanwhile Degas’s friend Mary Cassatt makes equally innovative use of the powdery, luminous qualities of pastel to highlight the flesh tones and delicate features of a baby.

These explosions of colour are exhibited alongside contrasting, shadowy works. In Tête d’homme Degas lets the shadows consume his model’s face. Next to this is a no less disturbing self-portrait by FantinLatour (Fondation de l’Hermitage). Meanwhile the artist who most clearly manifests divergent interests in shadow and the power of colour is Odilon Redon. In the 1890s his totally black charcoal drawings and lithographs gave way to an unexpectedly rich world of colour, dazzlingly represented here by Barques. Souvenir de Venise.

Modern room
Modern art
Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse

In 1908, Jenny and Sidney Brown abandoned the Munich Secession and turned their attention to French art. They were drawn both to Impressionism – a movement that emerged in the 1870s – and to the most recent avant-garde. Radically changing the orientation of their collection, they marked this new direction with the bold acquisition of a still life by Paul Cézanne, a major name in modernism.

Pêches, carafe et personnage is a singular work. Its iconography is halfway between a still life and an interior scene, while its sombre, contemplative atmosphere has echoes of the spirit of the Munich paintings that the couple had previously collected. This still life was also the first painting by Cézanne to enter a Swiss collection. It establishes Jenny and Sidney Brown as true pioneers.

Over the following years their interest in Cézanne grew stronger. In addition to still lifes, one of the painter’s preferred motifs, they acquired landscapes and paintings of Baigneuses. Their interest in very modern art can also be seen in their purchase of a Breton still life by Paul Gauguin and three very spare drawings by Henri Matisse.

Through the formal and chromatic experimentation that they reflect, these works acquired by Jenny and Sidney Brown alongside their Impressionist collection demonstrate the couple’s interest in the most innovative art of their time.