Davos loses out on key Modern and contemporary collection after voters reject Kirchner Museum extension

An important private art collection assembled by the German fashion entrepreneur Uwe Holy may find a home in the Swiss city of Chur after voters in Davos—the collector’s preferred location to display his art—rejected a planned new extension to the Kirchner Museum Davos.

In a referendum in November 2024, the people of Davos voted against investing SFr4m ($4.4m) in an extension to the museum that would have cost SFr11.5m ($12.7m) in total. Among the private sponsors who had pledged to contribute to the remaining funding were the World Economic Forum and the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Foundation.

Without the extension, the museum cannot accommodate Holy’s art, known as the Ulmberg collection. Comprising around 100 works by artists including Kirchner and contemporaries such as Max Beckmann, Emil Nolde and Lyonel Feininger, as well as post-war artists such as Francis Bacon, Pierre Soulages and Louise Bourgeois, it was on temporary exhibition at the Kirchner Museum in Davos until 5 January 2025.

Davos’s loss may be Chur’s gain. The collector is now in talks with the canton of Graubünden about a long-term loan of his art to the Bündner Kunstmuseum in the cantonal capital, according to a 23 December statement by Jon Domenic Parolini, the governor of Graubünden (sometimes known in English by its French name, Canton Grisons). The much bigger Chur museum would be able to house the collection without needing to build an extension.

“Retaining one of Europe’s most important collections in Graubünden would be a massive win for our canton’s arts and culture scene,” Parolini said.

Katharina Beisiegel, the Kirchner Museum’s director, says she regrets the loss of “a unique chance for Davos to position itself on an international level culturally. The vote was “not against the museum or the Ulmberg collection, but against spending more money,” Beisiegel said. She added that it is unusual for voters to reject an initiative almost unanimously approved by the municipal assembly, where only one member rejected an investment credit of SFr4m and a loan guarantee for the museum extension in the September vote. But while the right-wing populist People’s Party was the only party to oppose the extension, a private person published and distributed flyers criticising the plans and confusing voters, she said.

“Davos is a sports city and for culture, things are more difficult,” Beisiegel says. “But the snow will become less plentiful, that is a fact. Davos has to remain attractive for tourists in 20 or 30 years from now.”

Holy, who is 84, has an estimated fortune of more than €200m and owns a second home in Davos, according to German media reports. He and his brother ran the Hugo Boss fashion empire before setting up their own men’s fashion brand, Strellson, in 1984.