The two painters Varlin (Willy Guggenheim, 1900–1977) and Wilfrid Moser (1914–1997) from Zurich knew and admired each other. They analyzed the world from a distance and were critical and uncompromising. The Museum zu Allerheiligen is making these two artists’ extensive oeuvres the focus of a major exhibition. Works from all their creative periods will be on view, including late works that have rarely or never before been shown in such breadth. Some 100 works from private collections and the museum’s own holdings will shed new light on a major chapter in Swiss art in the second half of the 20th century.

Varlin remained a figurative painter throughout his life. Along with his contemporaries Max Gubler and Alberto Giacometti, he is one of Switzerland’s most important post-war realists. Wilfrid Moser was also a realist, though at times he left external reality behind and explored existential inner states in an abstract, informal style. Both were truth seekers who went to excesses. They felt the bustle of the big city, tore down facades, illuminated taboo areas, and found answers to the major questions of their time. Metro shafts, cemeteries, car races, butcher shops, cathedrals, urinals, and mountain slopes were their favorite subjects, which they painted on experimental large-scale canvases that were atypical for Swiss artists of their generation.

The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Wilfrid Moser Foundation in Zurich and was guest curated by Matthias Frehner. We would like to thank them as well as the Varlin Archive in Bondo and all the private lenders.

Thanks also to the Sturzenegger Foundation in Schaffhausen, Gyso AG in Kloten, Dr. Georg and Josi Guggenheim Foundation and our media partner Schaffhauser Nachrichten for their support.