BACKGROUND

Ever since the opening of the Unterlinden Museum to the public in 1853, the Société Schongauer has placed considerable emphasis on supporting the work of contemporary artists, by adopting their education as one of its missions. Louis Hugot, the museum’s first curator, acquired a large number of prints, which formed the basis of the museum’s pedagogical programme in his conception. These holdings encompass a wide variety of schools – Italian, French, Dutch and Flemish. In order to build up its collections, the museum has always sought to encourage gifts, sometimes by the artists themselves, as well as major allocations by the French state, which has been eager to create and enrich public collections.

The museum’s modern art collection genuinely began to take shape beginning in the 1960s, thanks to major acquisitions and gifts (Friedlaender, Reichel) and no longer confined itself to regional works. Initially, the collection included mainly works by mid-20th-century artists (Bazaine, Bissière, Debré, Dubuffet, Soulages and others), then shifted its focus to providing an overview of modern works by French artists, or those having worked in France (notably including Delaunay, Monet, Picasso, Renoir and Rouault). Since the 1990s, the museum’s modern art collection has grown in two new directions: the years 1930–60 (including Bram and Geer van Velde, Bissière, Fautrier, Hélion and Magnelli) and notable figures in terms of relations between France and Germany (such as Baumeister, Bissier, Dix, Grosz and Beckmann).

//Vue de la Salle d'Art Moderne
Colmar, musée d'Unterlinden.
Photo : O. Zimmermann