Another Three-Museum Day (5/22)

Winterthur is home to a lot of museums, which is why I decided to come here. This is an old industrial town, largely supported by the textile industry, that has become the home to three major art museums, a photography museum, a science museum that sounds much like the Exploratorium, and a number of other smaller venues. Oskar Reinhart created two of the three art museums. He ran a company involved with cotton from India, and simultaneously collected art.  At some point, he focused all of his time on his art collection.  He gave part of his collection to the city, which created the Museum Oskar Reinhart, near the center of town. Later, he enlarged and adapted, for the displaying of art, the villa in which he lived, on the outskirts of town, on a hill overlooking the city. Upon his death, the villa was transformed into a museum for the rest of his collection, referred to as “Sammlung Oskar Reinhart.”  In addition, there is a third art museum in town, the “Kunstmuseum,” or simply, the Art Museum.

I started my day by walking toward the villa, which was the Reinhart collection I most wanted to see.  On the way, I decided to stop and get my hair cut. It was shaggy and desperately needed something! The stylist asked me if I wanted 1 or 2 centimeters cut. I’m terrible at these questions – and also terrible with the metric system! I said 2 cm. – and my hair is SHORT!  Also, although I am carrying in my suitcase the henna that I use to color my hair, I had not brought it with me today. So . . . my gray – or rather, white – is quite prominent with my hair cut so short.  Afterwards, I was feeling VERY self-conscious with such short hair, and was mentally debating whether to just let the white grow out, or whether to have the henna put on NOW, QUICKLY!   Any opinions, anyone??????

 So, with my hair super short, I went on to the Villa. When I got there, I discovered that the opening time – noon -was different from the 10 o’clock opening that had been in my guidebook. I sat on the terrace, had a sparkling water, and caught up on the news until the museum opened. It was well worth the wait. The collection has a lot of Impressionists, one or two Picassos, a Greco, a Goya and a few pieces of quite wonderful sculpture. In fact, I had never seen Maillol before, but was quite taken with his pieces. This really was a jewel of a collection!

 From there, I had intended to go to the photography museum, but one of the staff members of the villa suggested I go into town to see the other part of the Oskar Reinhart collection, and then go from there to the photography museum because it made more sense geographically. So that’s what I did. The Reinhart Museum in town is predominately 19^th century art. There are a lot of Swiss and German artists of the 19^th century, many of whom illustrated daily life. I particularly like that kind of painting. There were several portraits of people reading, and one of a woman knitting, that caught my eye. There was a special exhibit of women as the subject of art, and the concept behind the exhibit had to do with the male gaze. Unfortunately, the curated material about the exhibit was only available in German, so I didn’t get much of the background, but it was still an interesting exhibit, with paintings going back centuries and 19^th-century photos, as well as a 21^st-century video piece.

 Then I went on to the photography museum. I had lunch on their terrace – a late lunch -  before entering the museum. Unfortunately, only two rooms were open because another exhibit was being mounted.  But I really enjoyed what I saw. It was a bit 21^st-century -  but more interesting than a lot of the junk that passes for art in some of the contemporary exhibits. I would have preferred Ansel Adams or Dorothea Lang, but oh well. This stuff was interesting.

After left the museum, I headed back toward the Alstadt, or old part of town, which I hadn’t seen much of yet. On the way, I saw a store that was selling yarn, so I had to inspect the merchandise. I went directly to the big church in the center of town. Unfortunately, by this time, the church was locked so I wasn’t able to get inside. But I had seen a Bernina shop, so I turned around and went inside the shop. I told the young woman in the store that I had a Bernina at home, and was just there to soak up the Bernina atmosphere. She laughed and welcomed me, and then pointed out a fabric store across the alley. So … I did more merchandise inspection.  I had a really good time looking at all the fabric. It was a reasonably large and well-stocked fabric store, with the basement devoted to more whimsical fabric (for lack of a better description). Although there was some really nice fabric, I didn’t see anything I couldn’t live without, especially since I would have to carry it for the rest of my trip if I bought it. Also, there were more blends and more synthetics than I prefer. I saw a really beautiful piece of linen, but it was about 30% viscose, which made me decide not to pursue it. Anyway, it was fun to have a fabric diversion.

From there I continued to walk around the old part of town. When I arrived at the train station, I decided to grab some food at the grocery there, and go back to my hotel for the rest of the evening. Since I leave for my conference in Munich in the morning, a night in sounded good. So here I am, having a picnic on my bed.