Women in the collection

On the first floor of the main building, there is something new to discover: eight portraits and a floral still life by women artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some of which have never been shown before. In addition to Paula Modersohn-Becker and Ottilie Roederstein, today's lesser-known painters such as Louise Amans, Auguste Roszmann and Louise Breslau are also represented. During their lifetime, however, they celebrated some successes: Louise Breslau, for example, was considered the most famous portraitist of women and children in France. All the artists represented here spent a long time in Paris. Amans and Roszmann met there and moved into a flat together in Basel in 1895.

Irène Zurkinden and Meret Oppenheim also cultivated a friendship. Both joined the Gruppe 33, a group that was not founded on the basis of an art movement but on a political programme and saw in their art the possibility of taking an anti-fascist position.
A room in the collection of the Kunstmuseum is now dedicated to these women and their friendships.