Art'n'Rail Kunstmuseum Bern

6.11.2023–31.12.2026

The Art Museum Bern has an important collection spanning from the late Middle Ages to the present day, which is displayed in changing exhibitions.

The old building houses key modernist movements such as Cubism, Expressionism, Surrealism, and abstract art, with highlights by Pablo Picasso, Meret Oppenheim, and Piet Mondrian, as well as works by Adolf Wölfli.

On the ground floor, visitors encounter contemporary art, for example by El Anatsui and Kader Attia, alongside works by Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, and Vincent van Gogh, as well as landscapes by Ferdinand Hodler, Félix Vallotton, and Giovanni Giacometti.

A side gallery displays eight paintings by Johannes Itten from a donation made in 2024. In the extension building, the Panorama Switzerland and Expressionism Foundation exhibitions, featuring works from the 19th and 20th centuries as well as post-war pieces, complement the presentation; both are included in the collection admission price.

15.8.2025–5.7.2026

The collection presentation “Panorama Switzerland” highlights selected facets of artistic creation in Switzerland between the late 18th and early 20th centuries. On display are influential groups of works from the painting collection: symbolist figure paintings from Arnold Böcklin to Ferdinand Hodler, genre paintings from Albert Anker to Max Buri, impressive mountain landscapes from Caspar Wolf to Albert Müller, and motifs of bourgeois leisure life from Cuno Amiet to Martha Stettler.

15.8.2025–5.7.2026

One of the most important areas of the Kunstmuseum Bern's collection is its collection of older art. With the exhibition “Life in Full. Old Masters from Duccio to Liotard”, the museum is focusing on this area and presenting works from the early Renaissance to the Baroque period.

On display are altarpieces by the Bernese Carnation Masters and important works by Niklaus Manuel, who shaped Bern's cultural life as a painter, poet, graphic artist, and political figure. Baroque still lifes and portraits by artists such as Joseph Heintz the Younger, Albrecht Kauw, and Johannes Dünz reflect the city's prosperity at that time. A separate cabinet also displays rare altarpieces and fragments from the Italian Trecento and Quattrocento, including a famous devotional panel by Duccio di Buoninsegna and works by Fra Angelico and from the workshop of Sandro Botticelli.

14.8.2026–17.1.2027

Franz Gertsch (1930–2022) is one of Switzerland's most influential representatives of photorealism and is also considered a master of contemporary woodcut printing. The retrospective “Franz Gertsch: Blow-Up”, presented in two parts at the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Museum Franz Gertsch, offers a comprehensive overview of more than six decades of his artistic work. On display are monumental paintings of the youth and music scene of the 1970s, striking portraits of women from the 1980s, family pictures and depictions of artist friends, as well as vast landscapes and nature studies.

At the Kunstmuseum Bern, the focus is on works from 1956 to 2021. In addition to well-known works, the exhibition opens up new perspectives on Gertsch's oeuvre and shows his stylistic development as well as the major thematic connections between his entire body of work. These include the relationship between humans and nature and the significance of photography for painting – aspects that are gaining new relevance today in the context of ecological and social challenges and in the age of the selfie.

30.10.2026–31.1.2027

The exhibition “Journey into Freedom: Capri – Skagen – Monte Verità” features around 70 works and explores the phenomenon of artists' colonies in Europe between 1830 and 1930. Against the backdrop of social change brought about by industrialization, many artists sought new ways of life and social utopias away from the big cities. Themes such as women's emancipation, queer identity, and closeness to nature became increasingly important. The exhibition presents three significant places of longing and makes the artistic departure into a freer, more communal future comprehensible.