Kunstmuseum Basel
The Kunstmuseum Basel houses the largest and most significant public art collection in Switzerland. With the priorities it is also among the most important museums of its kind planned and implemented was the neoclassical museum building from 1931 to 1936 by Paul Bonatz and R. Christian. The museum is located next to the former building of the Swiss National Bank at St. Alban -Graben in Basel. Current (2012 ) Director Bernhard Mendes Bürgi is.
Collection
The Art Museum has the largest collection in the world of works by the Holbein family. Especially the older holdings of the museum date back to the Basel collectors Basil Amerbach (1533-1591), whose father was a friend Bonifacius among others, the humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam and the painter Hans Holbein. 1661, the city has acquired the private collection. The so-called Amerbach Cabinet was one of the first museums that were in possession of an urban community.
The Amerbachsammlung 1671-1849 was housed in the house mosquito and part of the University Library. 1849, she moved to the museum at the Augustiner Gasse (now Natural History Museum Basel). Lack of space meant that the art collection in 1922 « Augustinerhof " at the Augustiner Gasse ( Prints and Drawings ) and in the " Bachofen house " on Cathedral Square ( collection Bachofen with other stocks ) received branches and 1928 with its main part at the Kunsthalle found a temporary home. Since 1936, the art collection has its domicile in what was then opened art museum, whose construction and planning time took about three decades.
The art museum is divided into three floors (ground floor, 1st and 2nd floor). Old Masters are represented with works by Holbein the Younger, Konrad Witz, Martin Schongauer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Matthias Grünewald, Rubens and Rembrandt. The museum has a large collection of Dutch and Flemish painting of the 17th century. The Impressionists of the 19th century are represented, among others, by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, and Pierre -Auguste Renoir. In addition, works of German, Austrian and Swiss painting of the 18th and 19th centuries can be found, for example, by Cuno Amiet, Ferdinand Hodler, Johann Heinrich Füssli, Michael and Robert Wutky ignition. To the great Böcklin collection include the first version of Böcklin's painting Isle of the Dead, as well as well-known works such as Centaurs, The Pest and game of the naiads.
Among the exhibits of sculpture and painting of the 20th century are, for example, works by Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris. Expressionism is represented among others by Edvard Munch, Franz Marc, Oskar Kokoschka and Emil Nolde. In addition to art works are from the period of constructivism, the Dadaism and Surrealism. As a representative may be mentioned here Piet Mondrian, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy. Contemporary Art, together with works of Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation in 1980 opened the Basel Museum of Contemporary Art exhibited the administrative part of the Art Museum.
Print Room and Library
In a separate sector of the house is the Print Room, in which a rich collection of drawings and original prints from the 15th century can be seen to the present. With over 300,000 drawings, watercolors and prints, it is the largest publicly accessible collection of Switzerland and represents at the same time internationally one of the most important collections of its kind dar. addition to drawings by Albrecht Dürer are from five sketchbooks and 50 drawings by Paul Cézanne exhibited. In the more recent contemporary art, the collection has substantial complexes of Swiss, German, Italian and American artists, including Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Georg Baselitz, AR Penck, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Jonathan Borofsky, Roni Horn, Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Enzo Cucchi, Walter Dahn, Martin Disley, Siegfried Anzinger, Leiko Ikemura, Markus Raetz, Robert Therrien, Rosemarie Trockel, and Robert Gober.
Furthermore, can be found in the construction of the museum a public Library, which is also a library of art history seminar at the University of Basel. The library is located since January 2005 in the former National Bank building, which is located next to the museum.
Important exhibitions
From April to September 2009 showed the Kunsthaus Basel 70 landscape paintings by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Chronologically, the exhibition provided an overview of all periods of his creative life, from Holland via Paris, to his time in Arles in southern France, as well as during his stay at the asylum of Saint- Rémy and Auvers in last -sur-Oise. The exposition was accompanied by 40 paintings of his contemporaries. For the exhibition on loan from major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d' Orsay in Paris, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Belvedere in Vienna or the National Gallery in London has been collected. The exhibition attracted more than half a million visitors.