Kunstmuseum Solothurn

The Kunstmuseum Solothurn has a collection built around one of the best concentrations of Ferdinand Hodler's work outside Bern. Hodler was the most important Swiss painter of the late 19th century, working in a monumental symbolic style that influenced generations of artists; the Solothurn collection includes several of his major works and provides a good introduction to his development.

The Dübi-Müller bequest of 1904 also brought a group of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works — Monet, Renoir, Bonnard, and others — that give the collection an international range unusual for a city of this size. The museum building is a handsome neoclassical structure a short walk north of the cathedral. Temporary exhibitions run alongside the permanent collection.

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A story
The Madonna of Solothurn, painted by Hans Holbein the Younger around 1522, hung in Solothurn for centuries before being transferred to the Kunstmuseum Bern. A copy now hangs in the cathedral. The Kunstmuseum itself holds a different Holbein — a portrait from the same period — but its reputation rests on Ferdinand Hodler's large symbolic paintings from the late 19th century, several of which came to the museum through the Dübi-Müller bequest.

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