Josef Müller (1887–1977) of Solothurn was 20 years old when, in 1907, he bought his first painting, the Bildnis Frieda Schöni (Portrait of Frieda Schöni) by Cuno Amiet painted that same year. Others followed, among them in 1909 his first purchase of a work by Ferdinand Hodler, Eiger, Mönch und Jungfrau im Mondschein (Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau in Moonlight) of 1908. His own creative talent, the lessons he took with various artists and an unbridled fascination for the art world of his day made him a dedicated and far-sighted collector.
Apart from significant sets of work by artists such as Cuno Amiet, Hans Berger, Giovanni Giacometti, Ferdinand Hodler and Félix Vallotton, the collection hold paintings by, among others, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Auguste Renoir, Georges Rouault and Wassily Kandinsky. In the 1930s Josef Müller began to broaden his collection, devoting similar enthusiasm to antiques and to objects from Africa, Indonesia, Oceania, pre-Columbian America and Japan. A dialogue between these and Western art took shape on the collector’s premises.
In 1943, after spending periods in Geneva and Paris, Josef Müller returned to the family home in Solothurn – and with it his already substantial collection, which he set about expanding in the ensuing years. He served on a number of committees and worked from 1945 until 1966 as a curator in what was then Solothurn’s municipal museum and is now the art museum. In 1977 his daughter Monique Barbier-Mueller (1929–2019) and her family opened the Musée Barbier-Mueller in Geneva, making a wide range of non-Western art from the collection accessible to the public. Besides these, a selection of works chosen by the collector for his own foundation, the Josef-Müller-Stiftung, can now be seen at Kunstmuseum Solothurn.
To mark the forthcoming 50th anniversary of his death, the Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIK-ISEA) is compiling a comprehensive publication on behalf of the Barbier-Mueller family. It will feature thematic and biographical essays tracing Josef Müller’s life as a collector and the evolution of his collection from a variety of perspectives. A glossary will provide an overview of major works from every part of the collection, complemented by in-depth discussions of selected highlights. Historical photographs and source texts will round the volume off, granting atmospheric insights into an exceptional life in the cause of art.