Kunstmuseum Basel
Three-building art museum whose collection began with the Amerbach Cabinet bought by the city in 1661.
The Kunstmuseum Basel traces its collection to the Amerbach Cabinet, bought by the city and the university in 1661 and generally regarded as the oldest public art collection in the world. The main building on St. Alban-Graben, designed by Rudolf Christ and Paul Bonatz around a stone courtyard, opened in 1936. A second house, the Gegenwart on St. Alban-Rheinweg, was added in 1980 for contemporary work, and in 2016 a Neubau by the Basel practice Christ & Gantenbein opened across the street.
The holdings run from the fifteenth century to the present. The museum owns the largest group of works by Hans Holbein the Younger anywhere, along with important paintings by Konrad Witz and other Upper Rhine masters. Later strengths include Impressionism, Cubism, German Expressionism, American abstraction and post-war art, with major works by Picasso, several of which the citizens of Basel voted to buy in a 1967 referendum.
Highlights
- The world's largest collection of Hans Holbein the Younger
- Collection rooted in the Amerbach Cabinet of 1661
- Christ & Gantenbein Neubau opened in 2016
- Picassos bought after the Basel referendum of 1967
