Mina and Josef John Collection

In April 2014, the Museum im Lagerhaus acquired the eastern Swiss art collection of Mina and Josef John, which includes some 650 works of Swiss outsider art, and in recent days the museum took ownership of the artworks. This important collection will now permanently remain in the eastern Swiss region, where it will be accessible to the public.

Initiators of the museum and the foundation
When the Museum im Lagerhaus was founded along with the Stiftung für schweizerische Naive Kunst und Art Brut in St. Gallen in 1988, the collector couple Mina and Josef John were central figures in outsider art. At the time, Josef and Mina John, who were important initiators of the museum and the foundation, donated a considerable number of works from their collection to the institution. The basic idea was to make the core of their collection of eastern Swiss outsider art accessible to the public. In the following years, loans from the John Collection have regularly been shown in various temporary exhibitions at the Museum im Lagerhaus. Today, nearly thirty years after the establishment of the foundation and the museum, the entire John Collection, which has continued to grow in the intervening years, has been transferred to the museum to be preserved for the future.

Outsider art from eastern Switzerland
At the Museum im Lagerhaus, whose collection serves as a cultural repository of Swiss outsider art, the John Collection will remain in eastern Switzerland, where it will be studied, conserved and made accessible to the public. This is the best possible home for these works, since many of the artists represented in the collection are from eastern Switzerland. «Quantity and market value are unimportant,» the collector and former antique dealer Josef John, who was born in 1937, once said. «What is essential is the quality, the context and the connections between the individual groups; it is the people behind it who are important.» Along with his wife Mina, he maintained contact and friendships with these people throughout his life. Furthermore, Josef John personally discovered and documented many artists. Without his passionate dedication to these often underestimated artists, works from internationally prominent figures such as Alfred Leuzinger, Alois Wey, Emil Graf, Heinrich Bleiker, Anny Boxler and Jakob Greuter would hardly be known to us today.

Exhibitions
Among the works by«untrained masters» in the John Collection are the largest private collection of pieces by the cement sculptor Ulrich Bleiker, objects from Paul Schlotterbeck, fantastical musical instruments from Max Goldinger and giant airplanes from Ernst Kummer. From 25 June 2014 to February 2015, some 50 loans of their works will be shown in the exhibition «Art from Outsiders» at the Forum Würth Rorschach in dialogue with pictures from the Sammlung Würth.
Beginning in March 2015, the Museum im Lagerhaus will show a comprehensive overview of the John Collection.

The purchase of the collection was made possible thanks to contributions of CHF 600,000 from the lottery fund of the canton of St. Gallen and CHF 150,000 from the city of St. Gallen as well as contributions from the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden and foundations and companies from the region.

Ernst Kummer (1918-2003), Flugobjekt, bemannt, undatiert, verschiedene Materialien, © Museum im Lagerhaus, Sammlung Mina und Josef John.

Emil Graf (1901-1980), «Adam und Eva», 1969, Öl auf Pavatex, © Museum im Lagerhaus, Sammlung Mina und Josef John.

Alfred Leuzinger (1899-1977), Mann mit Käfern (Selbstporträt), undatiert, Farbstift, Bleistift, Kugelschreiber auf Papier, © Museum im Lagerhaus, Sammlung Mina und Josef John.

Paul Schlotterbeck (1920-1998), zwei Maschinengewehre, um 1970, verschiedene Materialien, © Museum im Lagerhaus, Sammlung Mina und Josef John.

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung von:

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DR. FRED STYGER STIFTUNG

STEINEGG STIFTUNG

HANS UND WILMA STUTZ STIFTUNG

FREY BÜCHELER STIFTUNG

ERNST KOHLER STIFTUNG

BERTOLD SUHNER STIFTUNG