This exhibition surveys the history and formation of the collection of the Bilbao Modern Art Museum and its historical and artistic context over its two decades of existence, from its founding in 1924 until it joined the Bilbao Fine Art Museum de facto in 1945 (they were later administratively merged in 1969).

It includes numerous artworks and a plethora of documentation and archival materials that shed light on what the launch of the new museum meant.

Organised into a series of ‘case studies’, the rooms explore key events in the museum’s history: the acquisition of iconic artworks, the first contemporary art exhibitions, the evacuation of the collections during the Spanish Civil War, the relationship with other museum projects in Bilbao and Madrid at the time and its engagement with the artists and trends of its day.

The project is curated by Miriam Alzuri, the museum’s Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Mikel Onandia, a professor in the Fine Art Faculty at the University of the Basque Country.

Mikel Onandia’s book, The Origins of a Collection. The Bilbao Fine Art and Modern Art Museums, 1914–1945, the outcome of a research grant from the BBK-Bilbao Fine Art Museum, is being published to dovetail with the exhibition.