This publication deals with one of the most coherent gifts that a Swiss museum could receive from a private collector. The exquisite group of works is handled with great care and put into a biographical and art-historical context in sensitive essays by Ines Goldbach, Dieter Schwarz, Toni Stooss, Roland Wäspe, and Beat Wismer. Silvio Blatter draws a multilayered portrait of the collector with the gaze of an author, and Charlotte E. Remé describes the extraordinary performance by Nam June Paik that she had the opportunity to experience at the Kunstmuseum St.Gallen in August 1991. With his gift to the Kunstmuseum St.Gallen, Heiner E. Schmid, who grew up near Lake Constance, has facilitated a logical expansion of the museums collection of works of modern and contemporary art, which it has been developing since 1953 and is oriented toward international standards. Artists: Per Kirkeby, Mario Merz, Nam June Paik, Richard Serra, Thomas Virnich