The Beyeler Collection

The collection of the Fondation Beyeler is the soul and origin of the museum. Over more than five decades, Ernst and Hildy Beyeler assembled with passion, great expertise, and an extraordinary sense for art and its time works that personally moved them and continue to fascinate people from all over the world to this day. Their conviction that art should be shared and experienced ultimately led to the founding of the Fondation Beyeler.

Today, the collection comprises over 400 works from Impressionism and Post-Impressionism through Classical Modernism to contemporary art. The centerpiece is painting: works by Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, and Mark Rothko make some of the most influential positions in modern art directly accessible. Significant sculptures, such as those by Alberto Giacometti and Louise Bourgeois, as well as ethnographic objects from Africa, Oceania, and Alaska, lend additional facets to the collection.

The collection is distinguished by its focus on works of particular artistic quality and expressive power. Its selection has been and continues to be shaped by personal relationships and friendships with artists. Today, one encounters a collection with a distinctive signature, in which diverse connections between artists, epochs and forms of expression can be found.

Contemporary art gains significance and complexity with works by artists such as Gerhard Richter, Marlene Dumas, Philippe Parreno, Roni Horn, and Wolfgang Tillmans. And the Beyeler Collection remains in motion: it is regularly presented anew, brought into ever-changing constellations, and enters into stimulating dialogues with works from other collections. This creates multifaceted encounters across times and media.