BASEL.- The exhibitions of works from the Kunstmuseum Basel in Spain have caused a sensation. White Fire. The Kunstmuseum Basel Modern Collection, on view at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, this year, ranks among the most-visited exhibitions in the Museo Reina Sofía’s history. Together with Collectionism and Modernity. Two Case Studies: The Im Obersteg and Rudolf Staechelin Collections, a presentation of treasures from the two Basel private collections, the show, which opened in mid-March in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Letizia of Spain, has drawn around 550,000 visitors. The Kunstmuseum Basel’s exhibition featured highlights from its holdings of modern and contemporary art. The Rudolf Staechelin Collection’s focus is on eminent nineteenth-century artists who paved the way for modernism, while the Im Obersteg Collection unites outstanding masterworks of twentieth-century art. The around sixty works from the two Basel private collections traveled on to Washington, D.C., for an exhibition at the Phillips Collection (October 10, 2015–January 10, 2016).

Another no less historic presentation, 10 Picassos from the Kunstmuseum Basel, also closed this year at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, one of the world’s preeminent art museums. “The Prado has never been so complete,” Miguel Zugaza Miranda, director of the Museo Nacional del Prado, says. “During these past months, the Picasso masterpieces from Basel have enabled the Prado visitors to understand that Art History is a History of Artists, a series of dialogues in time.” Over the past six months, around 1.4 million visitors came to see the Basel Picassos in the museum’s Galería Central, where they were surrounded by masterworks of European painting from Titian, Tintoretto, and Velázquez to Rubens, van Dyck, and Goya. The conversation between the ten Picassos from the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Old Masters in the main gallery, the Prado’s director adds, was “one of those grand events that will always be remembered.”

Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, director of the Kunstmuseum Basel, is thrilled by how the exhibitions were received in Madrid, noting “the overwhelming response from the public and the press to our masterworks of classic modernism, a period that is sorely underrepresented in the city’s museums. We look forward to working with these two wonderful institutions again and especially to realizing additional joint exhibition projects. Miguel Zugaza, the Prado’s director, has offered to return the favor by sending works from his famous collection on loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel, and we will discuss our ideas and wishes in the near future.” Manuel BorjaVillel, director of the Museo Reina Sofía, is similarly delighted by his institution’s special relationship with the Kunstmuseum Basel “and grateful for the chance it gave us. We hope to strengthen our cooperation for the future.”

As Bernhard Mendes Bürgi notes, the enthusiasm with which Spanish audiences welcomed the works from Basel illustrates once more “what an extraordinary privilege it is to have these treasures next door and be able to see them any day.” The Kunstmuseum Basel’s main building is currently closed for renovations. Masterworks from the Kunstmuseum Basel are also on display elsewhere in the city—at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst and the Museum der Kulturen Basel—through February 2016. Works from the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation are on view in the exhibition FUTURE PRESENT—Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation—Contemporary Art from Classic Modernism to the Present Day at Schaulager. The enlarged Kunstmuseum Basel will reopen in mid-April 2016, when the museum will inaugurate its renovated home and the new extension.