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Beginning with the patriarch, Jakob Lorenz Rüdisühli (1835-1918) of Basel, Switzerland who was trained as a printmaker, the line of family painters concludes with the suicide of a son, Hermann Traugott Rüdisühli (1864-1944). Family members who became painters were four of his 14 children, Hermann, Paul Eduard, Michael Albert, and Alma Louisa.

Considered the most popular artists, Hermann and Paul Eduard painted landscapes, which incorporated autumnal oaks, silver birches, summer meadows, and babbling brooks. Their work was in such demand that they reproduced them as art postcards, many of which are featured in the exhibition. During the height of their production, the postcards were published for the American market and were referred to as "the American series." Hermann and Paul Eduard produced more than 4,500 paintings in the Romantic-Realist style, many of which were destroyed during World War II. Their art was influenced by Arnold Böcklin, a Swiss-German Symbolist painter who reached the height of popularity throughout Europe in the 1890s.

Although Alma Louisa was known for the quality and technique of her portrait painting, she remained in the shadow of her more prolific brothers Hermann and Paul Eduard, and little is known about her.

Michael Albert was a well-known copyist of old master paintings and worked as an assistant to his brother Paul Eduard. However, when Michael Albert realized that his work as a copyist did not pay well, he turned to dentistry. While the Rüdisühli family of artists is largely unknown in the United States, their work continues to be highly collectable in Europe.

Johannes Neckermann was first attracted to the Rüdisühli because his grandmother, Agnes Brückner, owned a painting that featured one of Hermann Rüdisühli’s favorite motifs, the village church, a painting that he now owns. Neckermann once owned an old master painting gallery; however, when he decided to collect Rüdisühli paintings, he quickly realized that no contemporary art historian, gallery owner, or collector had any great knowledge about them and he then began a quest to find the paintings and discover their history.

The Yager Museum at Hartwick College hosts the U.S. premiere exhibition of The Rüdisühli: A Family of Painters from the collection of Johannes Neckermann. The large, private collection of the Rüdisühli family paintings is owned by Johannes Neckermann of Schuyler Lake, NY and encompasses the works of five members of the family of German-Swiss painters dating from the late 19th century to World War II. Their Swiss landscape paintings include the popular and romantic scenes of bucolic countrysides, churches, castles, soaring mountains, storm clouds, and crashing surf, which recall an earlier popular style. The Rüdisühli family’s work also includes prints and postcards which were very popular with the upper middle class in Germany and Switzerland.