Just over 20 years ago, when we were looking for larger works of art for a newly constructed company building, we came across the Hamburg painter Carlo Cazals, alias Udo Klein. A few years earlier, he had moved with his wife Inge from Hamburg to a small town in Mecklenburg, where we first came into contact with his drawings and paintings in a small gallery.

Cazals’ works polarize! Some are immediately carried away, others are immediately repelled. Fortunately, my best husband of all time and I immediately agreed: this is what it should be!

Over the years and a few picture purchases later, the friendship with this special person grew. A rare stroke of luck, because apart from his wife Inge, his big dog (once it was a great dane, once a Rottweiler), Carlo didn’t really like people. During his lifetime, he asked us to manage his life’s work in trust, which we are still happy to do.

Working with his life’s work has led me to take a closer look at art history and modern art in particular for some time now. For me, a work of art doesn’t have to be pretty or decorative. I don’t necessarily have to understand it either. But it has to make something resonate in me and then I want to take a closer look at it. And so art is always present on Lake Maggiore.