Opening Modern Masters. “Degenerate” Art at the Museum of Fine Arts Berne

For the very first time, the Museum of Fine Arts Berne is mounting a special exhibition that takes an intensive look at the modern masters collection from the angle of its acquisition history. With its own funds, the museum only purchased a small proportion of the items in the collection, which boasts major works by artists such as Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Franz Marc, or Pablo Picasso. Indeed, numerous private collectors and further institutions donated artworks to the museum as endowments, bequests, gifts, or permanent loans. A number of the pieces were accrued when the Nazis sorted them out of German museums from 1937 onward. Therefore the exhibition highlights issues such as "degenerate art" or "intellect as a national defense mechanism" in Switzerland.