Visit the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland’s premier art museum, featuring a world-class collection ranging from Old Master paintings to contemporary works.
The Kunstmuseum Basel is the largest and best fine arts museum to visit in Switzerland. Its world-class collection of paintings covers the period from the late Middle Ages to the present. The smaller sculpture collection includes works by Rodin, Giacometti, and mostly 20th-century artists. Museum highlights include the world’s largest Holbein collection, works by Swiss artists such as Ferdinand Hodler and Arnold Böcklin, significant examples by the Impressionist and classical modernist painters, as well as 20th-century American art. Admission is free on weekdays from 17:00.
Visit the Kunstmuseum Basel Fine Arts Museum
Kunstmuseum Basel claims to be the first public fine arts museum in the world. The city council purchased the initial collection and opened the gallery to the general public already in 1661. Since then, the museum has grown through selective purchases and many donations to a world-class collection of Western art.
Highlights in the Kunstmuseum Basel include:
- The largest collection of Holbein-family paintings in the world.
- A significant collection of old master paintings from the Netherlands and Germany, including works by Lucas Cranach, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Brueghel.
- Paintings by Swiss and Austrian painters of the 18th and 19th centuries, including by Ferdinand Hodler and Arnold Böcklin.
- A varied collection of Impressionist paintings, including by Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, and Pierre-August Renoir.
- Important expressionist works by Franz Marc, Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde.
- European and American art by 20th-century artists, including Picasso, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Max Ernst, Rothko, Jasper Johns, and Joseph Buys.
- A growing collection of late-20th-century and contemporary art.
- A print and graphics collection (Kupferstichkabinett) of over 300,000 works on paper, including 5 by Albrecht Dürer, over 50 by Cezanne, and 100 Rembrandt etchings, is the largest publicly accessible collection in Switzerland.
- A selection of sculptures, including large bronzes by Rodin and works by Alberto Giacometti.
Permanent Art Exhibitions in the Kunstmuseum Basel
The museum is currently spread over three buildings:
- Hauptbau (Main Building) — opened in 1936 and home to art from the 15th century up to ca. 1950.
- Neubau (New Building) — opened in 2016 for mostly 20th-century art and special exhibitions.
- Gegenwart (Present) — opened in 1980 and used for frequently changing contemporary art exhibitions and a permanent installation by Joseph Buys.
The two main buildings, the Hauptbau and Neubau, are linked by an underground passage, while the Gegenwart is a separate building, a few minutes walk away. The Kunstmuseum Basel Gegenwart closed in May 2025 due to water leaks. (No reopening date yet.)
Plan a visit to the Kunstmuseum Basel now — much of the main art museum building will close for several years of renovation from 2027.
Top Works in the Kunstmuseum Basel Fine Arts Museum
Some of the top works and personal favorites to see on a visit to the Kunstmuseum Basel include:
Franz Marc: Tierschicksale
The hauntingly beautiful Tierschicksale (Animal Destinies, sometimes translated as Fate of the Animals), painted by Franz Marc (1880-1916) in 1913, is one of the highlights in the vast collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel. When Marc saw a postcard of this painting while serving at the front in France, where he died soon afterwards at Verdun, he commented that seeing his painting again was eerie and hard to recall painting it. It seemed like a premonition of the war, gruesome and moving.
The large 195 x 264 cm (76 by 104 inches) painting was damaged by fire in 1917 and restored by Paul Klee, a close friend of Marc. This explains the brown tint on the right side of the work. To protect the painting further, the lights in this exhibition room change constantly between white and a light shade of blue.
This painting is sometimes also known as Animal Destinies (The Trees Showed Their Rings, the Animals Their Veins) (Tierschicksale (Die Bäume zeigten ihre Ringe, die Tiere ihre Adern)) from a quote in a letter Marc later wrote to Auguste Macke. On the rear of the painting, he wrote »Und alles Sein ist flammend Leid« (“And all being is flaming sorrow”).
The painting was confiscated by the National Socialist regime from the Städtisches Museum für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe in Halle. Although condemned as degenerate art, the Germans decided to sell it on the international market. In 1939, the Kunstmuseum Basel used a special credit to buy Tierschicksale (and the Two Cats painting).
More Expressionist Masterpieces
Two slightly earlier works by Franz Marc hang next to the larger Tierschicksale. Two Cats, Blue and Yellow (Zwei Katzen, blau und gelb), 1912, and A Bison in Winter (The Red Bison) (Bison im Winter (Roter Bison)), 1913, are far more typical of the work by the most famous painter of the short-lived The Blue Rider movement. (The largest collection of Der Blaue Reiter paintings in the world is in the Lenbachhaus in Munich.)
The sculpture by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), The Friends (Hermann Scherer and Albert Müller) (Die Freunde (Hermann Scherer und Albert Müller)), 1924, enjoys a permanent view of these masterpieces.
In the same room are further expressionist works, including Kirchner’s Stafelalp, Return of the Animals (Stafelalp, Rückkehr der Tiere), 1919, the wooden sculpture Two Girls, 1925, by Albert Müller, Marc Chagall’s La Prise (Rabbin), 1926, and Paul Klee’s (1879–1940), Rich Harbour (Picture of a Journey) (Reicher Hafen (ein Reisebild)), 1938.
The most significant Klee work in the Basel art museum is probably Senecio (Baldgreis). However, for the world’s largest collection of Paul Klee works, visit the amazing Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern.
Picassos in the Kunstmuseum Basel
The Kunstmuseum Basel owns several artworks by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), including paintings, drawings, and sculptures. However, two Picasso paintings are very special for the Basler:
- The Two Brothers (Die beiden Brüder / Les deux frères) early summer 1906 (Gósol)
- Seated Harlequin (Sitzender Harlekin / Arlequin assis), 1923
Neither painting is a typical “Picasso,” although both are very typical and excellent examples of Picasso’s work at the time of their creation. These works were owned by the Staechelin family and displayed for years on loan in the museum. When the family decided to sell both paintings in 1967, Basel managed to buy them following a referendum in which the people of Basel agreed to a special loan.
Pablo Picasso, impressed by the citizens of Basel’s willingness to pay for art, donated four further works to the museum, including the freshly painted Venus and Cupid, 1967, and The Couple, 1967, the oil painting Man, Woman, and Child, 1906, and a Compositional Study for “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”.
Many further Picassos were donated to the museum by private individuals.
Hans Holbein Paintings in Basel
The Kunstmuseum Basel has the world’s largest collection of works by the talented Holbein artist family, who worked for many years in Basel, as well as many further paintings attributed to their students and workshops.
Two sons of the German painter Hans Holbein der Ältere (the Elder)(ca. 1465-1524) were also accomplished painters: Ambrosius Holbein (1494-1519), who died young in Basel, and the talented and prolific Hans Holbein der Jüngere (The Younger)(1477/98 – 1543), who maintained the civil right to live in Basel until his own death in London.
Two particularly impressive works by Hans Holbein the Younger in the Kunstmuseum Basel are:
- The Dead Christ in the Tomb (Der tote Christus im Grab), 1521-1522, is in the very unusual format of 32 x 202 cm (12.6 × 79.5 inches). It was commissioned by Bonifacius Amerbach, of whom a superb portrait (1519) by Holstein is usually displayed in the museum.
- Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam Writing (Bildnis des schreibenden Erasmus von Rotterdam), 1523, one of two paintings of Erasmus by Holbein in Basel, and similar to his Erasmus portraits now in the Louvre in Paris and the National Museum in London.
Cranach: Das Urteil des Paris
The museum has around two dozen works by prolific Lucas Cranach der Ältere (1472-1553), including the impressive The Judgement of Paris (Das Urteil des Paris), 1528, and Lucretia (ca. 1535/40). These female nudes show a completely different interpretation of female beauty compared to Italian artists from the same period.
Arnold Böcklin: Isle of the Dead
The museum has the world’s largest collection of artworks by local-born Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901), including paintings and sculptures.
The museum has the first of five versions of his Isle of the Dead (First Version), Die Toteninsel (Erste Fassung), 1880. (The second version is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the third in the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the fourth was lost in the Second World War, and the final version is in the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig. A sixth version, probably mostly by his son Carlo, is in the Hermitage in St Petersburg.
The Isle of the Living (Die Lebensinsel), 1888, is sometimes described as a counterpoint to the more famous Island of the Dead, but Böcklin probably never intended it as such.
Art by Alberto Giacometti
The Kunstmuseum Basel displays several sculptures, statuettes, and even a few oil paintings by Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), who is frequently the most expensive Swiss artist at public auctions.
Two personal favorites include:
- The Nose (Le Nez / Die Nase), 1947, a plaster head with a long nose suspended in a cage, and
- The Cat (Le Chat / Die Katze), 1951, an elongated bronze cat.
Auguste Rodin Bronzes
The museum has several sculptures on display, especially from the 20th century, as well as sculptural decorations on the exterior of the main museum building. (The exterior of the Neubau is stark.)
Two of the Auguste Rodin bronzes were cast in 1942, in the middle of the Second World War:
- The Age of Bronze (Das eherne Zeitalter / L’âge d’airain), 1876/1880, cast in 1942 (but originally ordered by Kojiro Matsukata in 1919 (!)
- The Burghers of Calais (Die Bürger von Calais / Les bourgeois de Calais), 1884–1889, cast in 1942/43, was the seventh of the 12 versions produced. Anyone may walk into the museum’s courtyard to see it for free, together with Alexander Calder’s Big Spider, 1959.
The plaster Walking Man (Der Schreitende / L’Homme qui marche), 1907, was one of the six plaster versions produced by Rodin before the bronze sculptures were cast.
Ferdinand Hodler: View Into Infinity
Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) is well represented with portraits and Swiss landscapes, but his huge View Into Infinity (Blick ins Unendliche), 1913/14-16, is unmissable at the entrance to the galleries on the second floor of the museum. The Kunsthaus in Zürich commissioned this monumental work, measuring 446 by 895 cm (176 × 353 inches). However, it turned out to be too big for the intended venue and ended up at the Basel museum instead. Hodler painted a smaller version for the original placement, as well as three further smaller versions now in Zurich, Solothurn, and Winterthur.
Mark Rothko and American Art in the Kunstmuseum Basel
The Kunstmuseum Basel was one of the first fine art museums in Europe to purposely buy modern American art. Two of the first important paintings acquired in 1959 were Mark Rothko’s (1903-1970) No 16 (Red, White and Brown), Nr. 16 (Rot, Weiss und Braun), 1957, and Barnett Newman’s Day Before One, 1951. The museum now has three works by Rothko and an impressive collection of American art from the second half of the 20th century.
Impressionism and Classical Modernism
The museum has a large collection of 19th-century and classical modernist paintings and a few further sculptures. Most famous impressionists and early 20th-century artists are represented.
Often with expected paintings, such as a typical Mondrian composition, a self-portrait by Van Gogh, a water-lily pond by Monet, an improvisation by Kandinsky, female portraits by Renoir, a collage by Matisse, and a painting with an American flag by Jasper Johns.
Some other works worth seeking out include:
- Vincent van Gogh: Marguerite Gachet au Piano, 1890, View of Paris from Montmartre, 1888.
- Edgar Degas: Injured Jockey, 1896.
- Henri Rousseau: Jungle with Setting Sun, ca. 1910.
- Egon Schiele: Portrait of Erich Lederer, 1912-13.
- Oskar Kokoschka: The Wind’s Bride (The Tempest), 1913
- Robert Delaunay: Homage to Bleriot, 1914.
- Max Beckmann: The Nizza in Frankfurt am Main, 1921
- Alberto Giacometti: Suspended Ball, 1930
Visitor Information: Kunstmuseum Basel
Opening Hours of Basel Art Museum
The Hauptbau and Neubau of the Kunstmuseum Basel are open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, closing at 20:00 on Wednesday. The Museum is closed on Monday, but may open on holidays.
The museum is closed on December 24, May 1, and several days during the Basel Carnival.
The Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart closed unplanned in May 2025 due to a technical issue. Previously, the contemporary art museum building was open Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00 to 18:00. (The reopening date is uncertain.)
Tickets to Visit the Kunstmuseum Basel
Entry tickets to visit the Kunstmuseum Basel are relatively expensive, but there are savings options and free admission periods. Tickets are usually without time-slot reservations.
→ Buy online from the museum website or in person from any of the three museum buildings.
Basic admission to the art museum, including the permanent collections and most exhibitions, is CHF25. The ticket price may increase, usually to CHF30, to include special exhibitions, which are usually optional.
Excluding special exhibitions, students up to 25 and teenagers 13 to 19 pay CHF12. Children 12 and younger enter free.
If you have a BaselCard, included for free with any hotel booking in Basel, you pay half price.
Free admission is possible for all visitors after 17:00 on weekdays. It is a good deal on Wednesdays when the museum only closes at 20:00. Admission is also free for all on the first Sunday of the month. (Holidays excluded.)
The Swiss Museum Pass and Swiss Travel Pass are valid. If traveling to Basel by train from elsewhere in Switzerland, check RailAway packages for possible combination savings.
Transportation to Visit the Kunstmuseum Basel
The Hauptbau and Neubau of the Kunstmuseum Basel are located at St. Alban-Graben 16, 4051 Basel, Switzerland. It is on the edge of the old town and city center, an easy walk from the Basler Münster and Barfüsserplatz (Christmas market). To visit the Kunstmuseum Basel Gegenwart, simply stroll a few blocks down towards the Rhine.
By public transportation, use the tram stop Kunstmuseum. From the main train station, Basel SBB, use tram 1 or 2 (direction Badischer Bahnhof). From Badischer Bahnhof, use tram 1 (direction Dreirosenbrücke) or tram 2 (direction Bingen). For transportation from EuroAirport Basel / Mulhouse / Freiburg airport, use Bus 50 to Basel SBB and then the tram.