Bistro Kunstmuseum

The Kunstmuseum Basel is considered the oldest publicly accessible art museum in the world. Its history goes back to 1661, when the city of Basel acquired the private collection of the Basel collector Basilius Amerbach. This so-called Amerbach Cabinet was the first museum in Europe to be owned by a municipal community. The collection traces back to the Amerbach family, whose ancestors maintained close contacts with leading figures of the Renaissance such as Erasmus of Rotterdam and Hans Holbein the Younger. Over the centuries, the holdings were steadily expanded through purchases, donations, and bequests, so that the museum today houses the largest public art collection in Switzerland.

The collection includes around four thousand paintings, sculptures, installations, and videos, as well as three hundred thousand drawings and prints spanning seven centuries. A particular focus is on the Old Masters, with works by Hans Holbein the Younger, Konrad Witz, Martin Schongauer, Rubens, and Rembrandt. The museum holds the largest collection of works by the Holbein family in the world. Dutch and Flemish painting of the seventeenth century is also strongly represented. The Impressionists of the nineteenth century appear in the holdings through names such as Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Another highlight of the collection is the large body of work by Arnold Böcklin, the foremost representative of Symbolism, who was born in Basel. With more than ninety paintings and sculptural works, the museum has the most significant Böcklin collection in the world, including the first version of the famous painting Isle of the Dead. In the area of modern art, you can see works by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris. Expressionism is represented by Edvard Munch, Franz Marc, and Oskar Kokoschka, while Constructivism, Dadaism, and Surrealism are represented by artists such as Piet Mondrian, Salvador Dalí, and Max Ernst. The bequest of Louise Elisabeth Bachofen-Burckhardt also plays a special role; in 1904 she left the museum a total of 303 works, including Madonna and Child by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

The museum's present main building was constructed between 1931 and 1936 by the architects Paul Bonatz and Rudolf Christ in the neoclassical style. It stands on St. Alban-Graben next to the building of the Swiss National Bank. In the museum's courtyard you will find the famous sculpture group The Burghers of Calais by Auguste Rodin. This Basel version is the seventh of twelve casts and has been on display at the museum since 1948. At the east entrance of the main building, you will also find two column bearers by the brothers Paul and Franz Peter Wilde, as well as three bronze reliefs by Carl Burckhardt depicting Amazons.

In 2016, an extension building opened that is connected to the main building underground. This building was designed for special exhibitions and presentations of the collection and is partly financed through a public-private partnership. In addition to the main building and the extension, the Kunstmuseum Basel also operates the Kunstmuseum Basel Gegenwart on St. Alban-Rheinweg. This building, which opened in 1980, is the oldest European museum devoted exclusively to contemporary art. On its upper floor, you can see a permanent installation by Joseph Beuys.

In addition to the museum, there is a dedicated Kupferstichkabinett (print room), which houses a rich collection of drawings and original prints from the fifteenth century to the present. With more than three hundred thousand drawings, watercolors, and prints, it is the largest publicly accessible collection of its kind in Switzerland. Alongside works by Albrecht Dürer, fifty drawings by Paul Cézanne from five sketchbooks are also on display. The collection includes groups of works by numerous Swiss, German, French, Italian, and American artists, among them Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns. A publicly accessible specialist library, which also serves as the library of the University of Basel's art history department, rounds out the offering in the former Swiss National Bank building.