The Berry Museum was founded in 2004 by the painter's grandson, Peter Robert Berry IV, and opened on the premises of Villa Arona. The painter's older brother, the dentist Dr. med. dent. Johann Berry, had built the spacious house around 1904. Subsequently, three generations of Berrys worked as doctors at Villa Arona.
Today, it houses oil paintings, pastels and drawings by Peter Robert Berry II, which were created over a period of forty years. Drawing on this extensive family collection, the museum provides an in-depth insight into the painter's artistic oeuvre. In addition, there is the culturally significant estate - consisting of books, letters, notes, diaries, music and numerous documents such as maps, brochures and writings on the founding and development of the spa town of St. Moritz. This illustrates how life, work and landscape intertwine to form a unique record of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Permanent exhibition at the Berry Museum St. Moritz © Berry Museum
Exhibition
The permanent exhibition offers a representative insight into the artist's work. Starting from his beginnings and Berry's intensive engagement with Giovanni Giacometti and Giovanni Segantini, which is expressed in the oil painting "Christmas Eve", his very specific engagement with the mountain world of the Engadin is revealed. His landscape paintings, which were all created in the great outdoors, capture the light under a southern sky and make the colors glow.
Permanent exhibition at the Berry Museum St. Moritz © Berry Museum
Young audience
The Berry Museum would also like to appeal to young visitors and bring them closer to the beauty of the mountain world through the powerful colors and expressive motifs of the pictures. Our aim is to arouse curiosity and sensitivity.
In doing so, we pick up on the stories that Berry's pictures tell: About the time around 1900, when it was not yet possible to reach the Engadin comfortably on the Albula Railway. They capture the hard and sometimes dangerous life of the muleteers, stagecoach drivers and roadmen. But you can also relive the sporting events - the Olympics, skijoring and horse racing on the frozen lake - that characterized social winter life in St. Moritz.
