The exhibition Hidden Reserves presents the diversity of Swiss painting between 1850 and 1950. It includes over 300 paintings from the private collection of Peter Suter, and the collection of the Aargauer Kunsthaus. There is a special focus on the first half of the 20th century. Apart from numerous artists who must be barely familiar to a wider public, Hidden Reserves also shows works by well-known painters like Ferdinand Hodler, Giovanni Giacometti, Arnold Böcklin and others. The juxtaposition of works from a museum collection conceived along arthistorical lines and an artistically motivated private collection creates an unexpected overview. Masterpieces enter a dialogue with unfamiliar works, encouraging a perception of Swiss artistic work that does not concentrate on established values. The exhibition offers unusual impressions and exciting encounters.

The exhibition Hidden Reserves shows a large number of paintings in a hanging most accurately described as a set of pictorial series. While traditional comparisons are restricted to two or three pictures, the different groupings of larger numbers of pictures offer untried possibilities of comparative viewing. The attention is drawn to works that had hitherto been rarely discussed in Swiss art history, or not at all. At the same time the many surprising juxtapositions powerfully allow a sequence of undiscovered perspectives to unfold. This slumbering potential source of interpretation can also be seen in terms of a hidden reserve.

To accompany the exhibition, the book Stille Reserven has been published by Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich (sold out).