Kunstverein Baselland Collection
Not everyone is aware that the Kunsthaus Baselland possesses a collection. When the Kunstverein Baselland gained a fixed exhibition space in the building by the Birs river in 1997 collecting ceased (with sporadic exceptions). The collection includes just under two hundred works, predominantly paintings but also prints and drawings. The Kunstverein started collecting in 1944, the year it was founded, when it was still called the “Basellandschaftliche Kunstvereinigung”. At that time the Verein explicitly formulated its purpose to promote local creativity through exhibitions (principally in the Schloss Ebenrain in Sissach from 1952 onwards) and through purchasing. Contemporary and what were then prestigious works from regional artists found their way into the collection. Thus today not only Basel region artists but also some from neighbouring cantons are represented in the collection. In 2015 a selection from the collection was shown in a significant exhibition context for the first time in the exhibition Collecting.
In 2017, the collection received a generous donation from the artists Ruth Pfalzberger and Romy Weber. With the special donation of F. and C. Bodin from Binningen and their daughter J. Bodin from Lausanne, the Kunsthaus Baselland has since 2018 been able to include an important group of works by Hanspeter Hofmann.