Sammlung Weiss

Winterthur / 411 works / open eleven days a year

A collection is
a long argument
with one taste.

Postwar abstraction, bought slowly between 1961 and 1994 by two people who never once agreed in public.

An empty gallery room under a skylight with bare walls and a pale timber floor

What is here

  1. Painting1861948 to 1979
  2. Works on paper1541946 to 1988
  3. Sculpture381951 to 1974
  4. Photography271955 to 1969
  5. Editions61962 to 1970

Elsa and Martin Weiss bought their first painting in 1961 with money set aside for a car, and their last in 1994, three weeks before Martin died.

They collected against the market rather than with it: the unfashionable years of artists who later became fashionable, and a stubborn number of artists who never did. Roughly a third of the collection is by people with no monograph.

Nothing has been sold. Nothing will be. The foundation deed forbids deaccession in terms a lawyer described, admiringly, as unhelpfully absolute.

Four rooms

  1. I

    The long room

    North light, no artificial source. Closed on days when the meter reads under 180 lux at noon.

    14 works
  2. II

    The small room

    One bench. The hang changes twice a year and is never announced in advance.

    6 works
  3. III

    The stone room

    Sculpture only. The floor is the original 1962 screed and it is not to be walked on in heels.

    3 works
  4. IV

    The store

    Not open. Researchers may request a viewing of up to four works, in writing, twice a year.

    388 works
A rough grey stone sculpture on a plain white plinth in a bare room
Room III. One work, one bench, no label.
A plywood art crate standing closed in an empty white room
Arrived Tuesday. Opens Friday, once it has acclimatised.

Eleven days

Twelve visitors per day, ninety minutes each, allocated by ballot. Entry is free. There is no shop, no café, and no photography.

  1. 14.03Room I and IIBallot closes 01.02
  2. 11.04Room I and IIBallot closes 01.03
  3. 09.05Room I, II and IIIBallot closes 01.04
  4. 13.06Room I and IIBallot closes 01.05
  5. 12.09Room I, II and IIIBallot closes 01.08
  6. 10.10Room I and IIBallot closes 01.09

Research and enquiries

The full catalogue is on paper, in one copy, in the reading room. We have been meaning to digitise it since 2009.

Foundation
Rychenbergstrasse 210
8400 Winterthur
Ballot
One entry per person per day. Results by post.
Loans
Two a year, to public institutions, for exhibitions with a catalogue.
Sliding storage racks holding framed works in a windowless art store
The store. Three hundred and eighty-eight works, waiting their turn.

Three conditions the works live under

Not policy for its own sake. Each of these is the reason something has survived seventy years.

I

Light

Fifty lux on works on paper, a hundred and fifty on paintings, and eleven days of opening a year. The store is the default state; display is the exception.

II

Air

Nineteen degrees, fifty per cent, moved slowly. The plant is oversized so it never has to work hard, which is also why it has never failed.

III

Handling

Two people, cotton, no jewellery, and a written condition report before and after every movement, including the ones inside the building.

Conservation record

Treatments carried out since 2015, listed because the deed requires it and because researchers ask.

  1. 2025Painting, FA 118Consolidation, localR. Frei, Basel
  2. 2024Works on paper, 14 itemsRehousing, deacidificationM. Bähler, Bern
  3. 2023Sculpture, FA 019Surface clean, waxStudio Lang, Zürich
  4. 2021Painting, FA 072Varnish removalR. Frei, Basel
  5. 2019Photographs, 27 itemsCold storage, rehousedIn house
  6. 2016Painting, FA 004Structural, tear repairR. Frei, Basel

Practical questions

How does the ballot work?
One entry per person per day, by post or by mail, closing six weeks ahead. Twelve names are drawn and answered by post. There is no waiting list.
Can I see a specific work?
If it is catalogued and not on display, yes, twice a year, in writing, with a reason. Uncatalogued material we cannot retrieve reliably and we say so.
Why is entry free?
Because the deed says so. Elsa Weiss thought charging for a private collection was a category error and left no mechanism to reverse it.
Do you lend?
Two loans a year, to public institutions, for exhibitions with a catalogue. Nothing travels in January or August.