The collections of the MASI Lugano reflect the very special history of visual art in Ticino. Since the end of the 19th century, this history has been shaped not only by regional artists, but also by international artists, collectors, art dealers and art scholars who have found their adopted home in Ticino.

The collections particularly reflect the special nature of the Canton of Ticino with its Italian cultural identity on the one hand and its political affiliation with the Swiss federal state on the other.

The presentation of the collection, enriched by a number of high-calibre loans, intends to convey a picture of how art in Ticino moved and developed dynamically in its unique cultural field of tension from the years after the founding of the Swiss federal state until the end of the Second World War, and which influences from the South and from the North asserted themselves here. The exhibition follows the historical traces of late Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, to Symbolism, Expressionism, New Objectivity and Magic Realism, right up to the first blossoms of Surrealism.