Conrad Meyer

The Zurich painter and engraver Conrad Meyer (1618-1689) can be regarded as the most important artistic personality of the Swiss Baroque period. It is therefore all the more astonishing that this important figure has never been the subject of a monographic museum presentation. The Kunst Museum Winterthur is now changing this situation with a comprehensive exhibition that reveals the significance of his work for the first time.

With his extensive oeuvre, the versatile Conrad Meyer is one of the most prominent Swiss artists of the early modern period. As a cosmopolitan and courageous spirit, he constantly sought out new things and dared to break down the boundaries of the art world of the time.

He was introduced to art at an early age by his father Dietrich Meyer, Matthäus Merian's teacher, and soon achieved mastery in a wide variety of fields. Especially in his younger years, he did so at a European level. His extremely productive life led to a large number of works, including over a thousand mostly independent designs for prints. The New Year's pages of the Zurich Central Library, which still exist today, can be traced back to his invention. Meyer was also a pioneer in the field of topographical nature studies and is regarded as the founder of Alpine painting, with which he paved the way for subsequent generations from Calame to Hodler.

Although his work has long been known in specialist circles, it has still awaited an appropriate appraisal. A few years ago, a group of interested parties came together to compile a comprehensive and fundamental academic publication. The book, which was published by Schwabe in 2025, provided the impetus for the exhibition so that the original work could be rediscovered. At Museum Reinhart am Stadtgarten, paintings, drawings and prints by Meyer will be on display alongside works from the Dutch Golden Age - many of them for the first time in hundreds of years.

Curated by David Schmidhauser