On the ground floor of the south wing is a group of stone sculptures by the well-known Viennese sculptor Fritz Wotruba, who was exiled in Zug during the Second Electoral War. The group consists mainly of permanent loans from the Wotruba Association, Vienna. Fortunately, last year another important work by Wotruba was added to our collection "The Stone, Great Legend Figure" from 1960: it was acquired by a private foundation in the art trade and remains in the collection as a permanent entry. Together with the two large works of Wotruba in the garden, major works of the 70s, there are representative stone sculptures by the artist from five decades in Zug like nowhere else!

As a thematic addition, we are showing a small sketch-like exhibition in the basement of the south wing entitled "Fritz Wotruba and Viennese Modernism". Smaller bronzes by Wotruba and early works on paper are surrounded by works by various Viennese artists of this century: Avramidis, Boeckl, Hanak, Hoffmann, Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele and Urteil. The top-class exhibits come from the Haab Collection, which is owned by the Kunstgesellschaft, and by several collectors from of the region. Wotruba had a close relationship with all of them: Hanak was his teacher by whom he was greatly influenced, he appreciated Klimt, Kokoschka and Schiele as artists, and also owned some of their works, and he was friends with Josef Hoffmann, the famous architect and designer. Boeckl was largely responsible for Wotruba's appointment as professor of sculpture at the Vienna Academy in Zug after the end of the war. Avramidis and judgment later warned two of his most gifted disciples there.

On the basis of the works on display, numerous revealing comparisons can be made with works by Wotruba, but this cannot be discussed here. Suffice it to say that the sparse, simple, outlined figure drawings by Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka are close to Wotruba's drawings, and are themselves "sculptor's drawings". The bare, knotless tree trunk, as it is characteristic of the two impressive and unique paintings by Schiele and Klimt, became a metaphor and formal point of orientation for Wotruba's bronze figures in the 1950s. In particular, the large figure from 1974 in the garden provides a powerful conclusion to this older type of work and is a mixture of man and gnarled and knotless trunk. In addition to the extraordinary quality of the exhibits on display, the special feature of the selection of works is that most of them once passed through the hands of Wotruba. Since the 1950s, he had been working as a consultant for the most important Viennese gallery at the time, Würthle. He was instrumental in the conception of her exhibitions of classical and contemporary modernism. Ultimately, the aim was to promote and communicate modern art, of which little was known in Vienna at the time. Many of the works shown here come from those gallery exhibitions and were selected by Wotruba for this purpose. This applies to the oil paintings as well as to drawings by Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and Boeckl. It hardly needs to be emphasized. how high the significance of this historically unique group of works is, - especially for Zug.