Art Museum Thurgau

With its impressive architecture and historical significance, engaging with art at Kartause Ittingen becomes a moment of rare intensity. In 1983, the Thurgau Art Museum was moved from its provisional location at the Villa Sonnenberg in Frauenfeld to the new Culture and Congress Centre Kartause Ittingen and has remained there ever since – right in its historical centre. Currently, Ittingen Museum and Art Museum Thurgau, the two museums located within Kartause Ittingen, are headed by Markus Landert.

A unique group of works by Adolf Dietrich (1877–1957), a painter from the Canton of Thurgau and whose works are well-known and popular far beyond cantonal and national borders, builds the collection’s core.

In the past years an impressive collection of naïve art has been built around this collection, missing none of the important representatives of this group: Camille Bombois, André Bauchant, Louis Vivin, Emeric Fejes, Erich Boedecker are some of the most renowned names in this unique collection.

Work groups by Helen Dahm, Hans Brühlmann, Carl Roesch and Ernst Kreidolf offer us a glimpse into the region’s art of the last hundred years.

The two monastery cellars with their impressive vaults create an appropriate backdrop for an exhibition programme that features both internationally renowned contemporary artists as well as local artists.

You will encounter numerous works of art on Kartause Ittingen’s grounds. The spectacular LOOP, a 15-meter-high double loop by artist duo Bildstein | Glatz, is placed directly in front of the entrance to the former monastery. Visitors to the museums are greeted by animal sculptures gleaming in the sun, a transparent house invites to engage in meditative contemplation, while Jenny Holzer’s stone benches break up the idyll of the monks’ gardens.