Switzerland Guide
Zürich
The Kunsthaus
The Kunsthaus is Switzerland's finest gallery. As well as a large permanent collection, it hosts a continuous flow of top-flight temporary exhibitions, advertised widely around town. If you visit just one art museum in Switzerland, this should be it.
The collection begins before you even get inside: beside the main door is Rodin's vivid Gate of Hell, while sculptures by Moore, Maillol and others dot the grounds. Inside, most of the ground-floor galleries house whatever temporary exhibit is on, aside from one whole wing of the ground floor which is given over to a permanent display of the widest array of Alberto Giacometti's sculpture in the world.
Elsewhere, you'll find Dutch and Flemish painting represented by Rubens, Rembrandt, Hals and others, the Venetian room showing Canaletto and El Greco, and canvasas from the Italian and Dutch Baroque. There's a complex of rooms devoted mainly to Swiss artists of the nineteenth century, including many works by Anker, Böcklin, Segantini and Füssli.
The collection of twentieth-century art is stunning. A broad selection of pop, concrete and abstract expressionist art is headed by a number of works by Warhol, a Rothko, a gigantic wall-sized installation by Baselitz, geometric constructivist sculpture and works by Bacon and Twombly. A collection of French sculpture since Rodin is dominated, unusually, by Matisse. Cubism, Fauvism and Dada are all represented, and works by Miró, Dalí and De Chirico head an impressive Surrealist overview. Picasso, Chagall and Kandinsky are all represented, there are two of Monet's most beautiful water-lily canvases, while Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and the largest Munch collection outside Scandinavia top an extraordinary journey. Last but not least is the rare chance to revel in the powerful, mystical landscapes of Alps and lakes by the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler.
Opening time: Tues– Thurs 10am–9pm, Fri– Sun 10am–5pm
Price: Fr.10, free on Wed; temporary exhibits Fr.10–17
Website: www.kunsthaus.ch