Hermann and Margrit (née Wirz) Rupf

Hermann and Margrit Rupf were early proponents of avant-garde art in Switzerland and generous patrons and advocates of contemporary artists. The Rupfs established the first major collection of Cubist and abstract art in Bern, alongside an important collection of contemporary Swiss art, which they bequeathed to the city’s Kunstmuseum in 1954.

Hermann trained as a banker from 1901 to 1903 at the Commerz-und Disconto-Bank in Frankfurt, Germany, where he made the acquaintance of fellow student, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Following his training, Rupf accepted a position at the Jacques Meyer Fils & Cie in Paris (now the Galeries Lafayette). He and Kahnweiler (then working at a stock brokerage firm in Paris, before he became an art dealer there in 1907) developed a close friendship, and through Kahnweiler Rupf made his first acquisitions of Fauvist and Cubist work over the course of 1907–8. While the Rupfs were not wealthy, they relied on their personal relationships with artists and Kahnweiler to acquire works at lower prices, often purchasing pieces that other collectors did not desire. After meeting Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso through Kahnweiler in 1908, the Rupfs purchased Braque’s Houses in L’Estaque (1908; Kunstmuseum Bern) and Juan Gris’s Bottle of Banyuls (1914; Kunstmuseum Bern) from Kahnweiler in 1914, and Picasso’s Head of a Man (1908; Kunstmuseum Bern).

The Rupfs moved back to Bern in 1908 where they ran the textile shop and haberdashery R. Hossmann & Rupf. The need to keep abreast of the latest clothing trends permitted the couple to travel frequently to Berlin, London, and Paris, where they also had the opportunity to see the latest exhibitions and visit their artist friends. Up until the outbreak of World War I, the Rupfs became some of the most prominent clients at Galerie Kahnweiler. Kahnweiler even lived with the Rupfs in Bern when exiled to Switzerland during the war.

In the early 1920s the couple began adding works by Hans (Jean) Arp, Vassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Henri Laurens, and Meret Oppenheim to their growing collection, which they housed in their apartment in Bern and country home in the Alpine village of Mürren. They had a predilection for acquiring small-sized works to ensure that their growing collection could fit within their homes. The Rupfs remained in close contact with Kahnweiler and continued purchasing works from his postwar business, the Galerie Simon. As a testament to their friendship, in 1933, at Hermann’s request, Kahnweiler even agreed to represent Paul Klee from abroad. In exchange, Kahnweiler introduced the Swiss couple to André Derain (whose work they had been collecting since before World War I), and musicians Robert Casadus and Hans Kayser—artists with whom the Rupfs would forge close relationships and financially support throughout their lives. During this period, Hermann wrote as an art critic for the Berner Tagwacht (from 1909 to 1931), a Social Democratic weekly, where he advocated for the acceptance and exhibition of controversial contemporary art in Swiss museums and collections. His columns were outspoken and modern despite the conservative cultural climate in Switzerland.

The Rupfs were known as generous patrons to struggling modern artists. Throughout the early 1930s, Hermann and Margrit supported Vassily and Nina Kandinsky (whom they had met through Paul and Lily Klee). Hermann served as the Kandinskys’ financial advisor and found temporary housing for the couple in Bern following the forced closing of the Bauhaus School in 1933.

With the onset of the Second World War, the Rupfs’ collecting dwindled. They relocated to Mürren and opened their home to Kahnweiler during the majority of the war years. In 1954, the couple donated their collection of Cubist, abstract, and contemporary Swiss art (containing approximately 250 works) to the Kunstmuseum Bern and established the Rupf-Stiftung to ensure the conservation and expansion of their bequest over time. The collection included fifteen works by Braque, twenty-one works by Gris, seventeen works each by Léger and Klee, fifty-eight works by Masson, and forty-nine works by Picasso. The Stiftung was intended to evolve and change over time, as the Rupfs encouraged new acquisitions that complemented the original core collection. Important Cubist works in the collection include Braque’s Violin and Bow (1911); Gris’s Three Cards (1913) purchased from Kahnweiler in 1913; Fernand Léger’s Contrast of Forms (1913) purchased from Kahnweiler in 1913; Gris’s Portrait of Josette Gris (1916), purchased from the Galerie Simon in 1935, as well as important works by Arp, Kandinsky, Klee, Lucio Fontana, Masson, and the Zero Group. Today the Rupf-Stiftung collection includes more than nine hundred paintings, sculptures and works on paper.