Kunstmuseum Basel Neubau

"Christ & Grantenbein / Modern arts Lisa, Andrusha 28.12.23 UNMISSABLE The heart of the collection, with its masterpieces from the 15th-16th centuries, comes from the Amerbach cabinet. The friendship of the academic Basilius Amerbach with the painter Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) resulted in the presence of an exceptional corpus of fifteen of his paintings, visible in room 5, and to which all visitors seem irresistibly attracted. On this floor, each room has its masterpieces. We are greeted on the landing by a monumental canvas by Ferdinand Hodler whose title, Regard sur l'infini (Blick ins Unendliche), sounds like a promise. From the ancient masters (Brueghel, Cranach, Rembrandt, De Hooch...) to the great painters of modernity (Cézanne, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Gauguin, Corot, Renoir...), none is missing. Don't miss the symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901), from Bale, and one of the five versions of The Island of the Dead (Die Toteninsel), a painting that everyone knows without knowing it. The second floor unfolds the art of the 20th* century, including the German avant-gardes saved from the Nazis in 1939 by the collector Georg Schmidt (Kirchner, Marc), major Picassos, a room dedicated to Giacometti, and Martin Barré. The dynamic and original hanging was completely redesigned by former director Josef Helfenstein (2016-2023). Go from the outside or take the underground to reach the modern building erected by the Balois architects Christ & Gantenbein. The austere and mineral construction of gray marble welcomes since 2016 American from the 1950s and large monographies organised in the galleries of the third floor (Shirley Jaffe, Henri Matisse and André Derain, Jasper Johns, Dan Flavin), illuminated by skylights. Continue the chronology by joining the Gegenwart ("Present"), on the banks of the Rhine. In 1980, Maja Sacher-Stehlin, with the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation created by her mother, initiated and facilitated the construction of one of the first contemporary art museums in the world. The latest acquisitions include works by Jeff Wall, Tacita Dean, David Claerbout, Andrea Zittel, Steve McQueen and Toba Khedoori, visible during temporary exhibitions when they came out of the Schaulager reserves, which ensures their conservation."