Kunstmuseum Basel
The Kunstmuseum Basel houses the oldest public art collection in the world and is generally considered to be the most important museum of art in Switzerland.[1] It is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.[2]
Established
Its lineage extends back to the Amerbach Cabinet, which included a collection of works by Hans Holbein purchased by the city of Basel and the University of Basel in 1661, which made it the first municipally owned and therefore open to the public museum in the world. Its collection is distinguished by an impressively wide historic span, from the early 15th century up to the immediate present. Its various areas of emphasis give it international standing as one of the most significant museums of its kind. These encompass paintings and drawings by artists active in the Upper Rhine region between 1400 and 1600, as well as the art of the 19th to 21st centuries.
Collection[edit]
The Kunstmuseum possesses the largest collection of works by the Holbein family. Further examples of Renaissance art include important pieces by such master artists as Konrad Witz, Hans Baldung (called Grien), Martin Schongauer, Lucas Cranach the Elder and Matthias Grünewald. The main features of the 17th and 18th centuries are the Flemish and Dutch schools (e.g. Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt, Jan Brueghel the Elder), German and Dutch still life painting. Key works from the 19th century include the Impressionists represented by Édouard Manet, Edmond Jean de Pury, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne as well as the paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Switzerland's Arnold Böcklin and Ferdinand Hodler. In the 20th century, the focus is on works of Cubism with Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris. Expressionism is represented by such figures as Edvard Munch, Franz Marc, Oskar Kokoschka and Emil Nolde. The collection also includes works from Constructivism, Dadaism and Surrealism and American art since 1950. Further highlights are the unique compilations of works from Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Paul Klee, Alberto Giacometti and Marc Chagall.
In the realm of more recent and contemporary art, the collection maintains substantial bodies of work by Swiss, German, Italian, and American artists, including Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Georg Baselitz, A.R. Penck, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Jonathan Borofsky, Roni Horn, Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Enzo Cucchi, Martin Disler, Leiko Ikemura, Markus Raetz, Rosemarie Trockel and Robert Gober.
In 1975, the Dia Art Foundation installed Untitled (In memory of Urs Graf) by Dan Flavin in the museum's front courtyard and arcade gallery. This permanent, outdoor, installation was funded and installed by the Dia Art Foundation as its first major public work. It was subsequently gifted to the Kunstmuseum in 1980.[3][4]