“Nothing Happens Without Love” Silvia Ruppen’s Stamp Art

“Nothing Happens Without Love” Silvia Ruppen once wrote this sentence in German on one of her stamp sketches. It suits a designer who is especially fond of working by hand. With pencil, brush and a great deal of love for detail, she creates pictorial worlds of her own in the smallest of spaces.

Just how many different subjects fit onto postage stamps is shown by this special exhibition with 49 stamps from the years 2001 to 2025: Sometimes tiny bees and other native animals take center stage, sometimes agriculture, sometimes science. Then again, precious ornamental eggs or masterpieces by Gustav Klimt and Peter Paul Rubens become the motif.

Every stamp presented Silvia Ruppen with a new task: How can a complex subject be condensed into a few square centimeters? How does that become an image which sparks curiosity and stays in the mind?

The exhibition invites you to look closely and to discover 25 years of stamps designed with heart and hand.