Edvard Munch's painting of Wilhelm Wartmann remained hidden from public view for many years. But the friendship between Wilhelm Wartmann and the artist Edvard Munch is reflected in their extensive correspondence with their letters documenting a deep affinity between the first director of the Kunsthaus Zürich and the Norwegian painter. Wartmann managed the fortunes of the Kunsthaus Zürich for forty years, from 1909 to 1949.

He oversaw the opening of the museum to international and contemporary art, promoted the development of a unique collection of old masters and modern art, and created a Europe-wide network of relationships with art lovers, collectors, art historians, museum directors and artists such as Munch, Hodler, Kokoschka and many others, whose development he accompanied with great empathy.

Wilhelm Wartmann laid the foundations for the Kunsthaus's current role and can be regarded as one of Switzerland's most important museum directors. Iris Bruderer-Oswald, who holds a doctorate in art history, has now published the first scholarly biography of Wilhelm Wartmann. It opens a new chapter in art history that will radiate from Zurich far into the European art world.

Iris Bruderer-Oswald PhD grew up in the Netherlands and Switzerland. She studied art history, German studies and Dutch studies at the University of Zurich. She completed her doctorate under Gottfried Boehm at the University of Basel on the Swiss-American expressionist Hugo Weber. She received a three-year research grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, Bern, and the German Centre for Art History, Paris, for the project 'Carola Giedion-Welcker and the Language of Modernism'. For many years she has lectured in New Art History at various institutions, with research stays in the USA, France and Germany, she has also given talks and published essays on 20th-century art including Wilhelm Worringer, Kurt Schwitters, Oskar Kokoschka, Sigismund Righini. She is a correspondent for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF).