The Basque Country (pdf, 4,3Mb) - Kultura Saila - Euskadi.net

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Artium Museum of Modern Art.
Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Kutxaespacio Museum of Science.
Donostia-San Sebastián.
8. MUSEUMS, LIBRARIES
AND ARCHIVES
In Euskadi there are institutions that provide cultural services
(museums, archives and libraries), as well as individuals and
collectives which have made significant contributions to society
and now form part of the collective memory.
Also marking the cultural agenda are events, popular customs
that contribute to visitor recognition, and media that focuses on
general and cultural knowledge.
8.1. Museums
The purpose of museums is to collect, preserve, display and
promote knowledge of human achievement and artistic creation.
Vasconia has specialised in art museums. Following the historic
and outstanding Bilbao Fine Arts Museum (1908), came the
Museum of Navarre (1910), the Euskal Museoa in Bayonne (Musée
Basque & de lʼhistoire de Bayonne, 1924), and the San Telmo
Museum in Donostia-San Sebastian (1932).
Another 60 years would pass before a qualitative leap would as
taken in the 1990s with the inauguration of the Guggenheim
Museum Bilbao, Artium (Vitoria-Gasteiz), the Chillida Leku
Museum (Hernani, Gipuzkoa) and the Oteiza House & Museum
(in Alzuza, Navarre). There are also a number of other valuable
showcases of cultural interest in addition to art museums.
The number of museums and collections in Euskal Herria is about
120. In Euskadi, there are 68 (30 in Gipuzkoa, 19 in Bizkaia, and
19 in Araba), in Navarre about 30 and in Iparralde about 20.
There are important art museums in Euskal Herria.
The building of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, designed
by the architect Frank O. Gehry, is a work of art in itself; its
construction has projected the city and its image all over the
planet. Its structure of interconnected volumes, limestone and
curved titanium is spectacular.The museum features a permanent
collection and temporary exhibits. The permanent collection
comprises the collection of the Guggenheim Museum of Modern
Art in New York (available by contract) and the Bilbao collection.
The Bilbao collection includes works by artists of great significance
in the second half of the twentieth century, such as Eduardo
Chillida, Yves Klein, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Antoni
Tàpies, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Richard Serra, Anselm Kiefer,
Robert Motherwell, Rosenquist, Bourgeois, and Viola, among others.
Important names in young Basque and Spanish art also stand out,
such as Txomin Badiola, Cristina Iglesias, Pello Irazu, Koldobika
Jauregi, Jesús Mari Lazkano, Darío Urzay, Miquel Barceló and
Prudencio Irazabal. The museum receives around half a million
visitors per year.
Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao. The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum
was the result of bringing together two museums founded in
1908 and 1924. The magnificent collection begins in the twelfth
century and contains important works from the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries (Velázquez, El Greco, Murillo, Zurbaran,
Ribera, Carreño...). The collection also includes pieces from
Flemish Baroque (Van Dyck, De Vries…) and from the eighteenth
century (Paret, Bellotto, Meléndez...). Works by Goya and by
nineteenth and early twentieth century painters, such as Sorolla
and Madrazo, are also on display.
In addition, it has the best collection of Basque artists of the
nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, including Guinea,
Zuloaga, Guiard, Regoyos, Echevarría, Iturrino, Arteta, Aranoa,
Lecuona, Ucelay and Balerdi, and it also contains pieces by Gauguin,
Delaunay, Cezanne, Picasso, Kokoschka, Bacon, Vázquez Díaz,
Gutiérrez Solana, Gargallo, Oscar Domínguez, Tàpies, Millares
and Saura. Work by Oteiza and Chillida can also be viewed.
Artium Basque Centre Museum of Contemporary Art. Created in
Vitoria-Gasteiz in 2002, its mission is to disseminate the art of our
times through its permanent collection, the organisation of temporary
exhibits and other parallel activities related to creation and thought. It
has an excellent collection of contemporary Spanish art.
Museo de San Telmo. The San Sebastian-based museum was
founded in 1932 in a sixteenth century convent. Of special
importance is the collection of pre-Roman stelae and the
collection of ethnographic materials depicting different aspects of
traditional Basque lifestyles. It also has a collection of paintings,
with works ranging from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries
and with artists like Madrazo, El Greco, Ribera and Rubens, in
addition to work by Basque painters.
Chillida-Leku. Outdoor museum in the Zabalaga farmhouse in
Hernani. It shows significant pieces by Eduardo Chillida and how
the sculptorʼs work evolved over the years.
Euskal Museoa de Baiona (Musée Basque & de lʼhistoire de
Bayonne) has a varied collection of a general nature of a general
nature, and Musée Bonnat, also in Baiona, houses a collection
donated by the painter Leon Bonnat.