The Beyeler Foundation or Fondation Beyeler with its museum in Riehen, near Basel, owns and oversees the art collection of Hildy and Ernst Beyeler.
History
Art dealers Ernst Beyeler (16 July 1921 – 25 February 2010) and Hilda Kunz (1922 - 2008), known as Hildy, created the Beyeler Foundation in 1982 and commissioned Renzo Piano to design a museum, the Fondation Beyeler, to house their private collection.[1] The collection was first publicly exhibited in its entirety at the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 1989, and was subsequently shown at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, (1993) and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sidney, (1997).[2]
By building Renzo Piano's museum structure in 1997, the Beyeler Foundation made its collection permanently accessible to the public. The museum is properly funded, and it receives annual grants from the cantons of Basel City and Basel County and the commune of Riehen.[3] In 2006, approximately 340,000 persons visited the museum. Hildy Beyeler died on July 18, 2008, and Ernst died on February 25, 2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyeler_Foundation
