Forget queuing at the Louvre or the Uffizi. You’ll find a fresh perspective on everything from medieval to modern art in places like Lille, Verona and Zurich.
Zurich may be known as a financial centre, but it has a creative side, too. The Kunsthaus Zürich became the biggest art gallery in the country when its David Chipperfield-designed extension opened in 2021. Its collection spans 800 years of art, and includes old masters, Swiss artists such as Giacometti, works by Monet, Cézanne, Picasso, Van Gogh and Warhol, and contemporary artists. The area around the Kunsthaus is now the Zurich Gallery Mile, best explored on the Zurich Art Weekend (12-14 June), held a week before the more famous Art Basel. In Zurich-West, a brewery built in the 1890s became an arts centre in the 1990s. The Löwenbräukunst-Areal now houses several modern and contemporary galleries, including a branch of Hauser & Wirth. Near Lake Zurich, the Museum Rietberg showcases non-European art in three historic villas, a modern extension and surrounding parkland. A day trip to Baden, 15 minutes away by fast train, offers the Museum Langmatt, which reopened this month after two years of renovation, displaying about 50 French impressionist masterpieces.
Paris is the undisputed art capital of France, but Lille has some excellent galleries with lower prices and a fraction of the crowds, and can be reached even more quickly by Eurostar from London (just 1hr 20mins). The Palais des Beaux-Arts, in a beautiful 19th-century building, houses perhaps France’s richest art collection after the Louvre, by artists such as Rodin, Van Dyck, Rubens, Delacroix, Goya and Courbet (entry is just €7 versus the Louvre’s €22). LaM, a modern and contemporary art gallery that’s a 30-minute bike, Métro or bus ride from the city centre, reopened in February after an extensive renovation. The inaugural exhibition is a Wassily Kandinsky retrospective (until 14 June), while the permanent collection includes work by Modigliani, Fernand Léger, Paul Klee and Louise Bourgeois. Its sculpture garden contains 10 monumental pieces by Alexander Calder and more. A day trip to Roubaix, 10 minutes away by fast train, offers La Piscine museum, an art deco former swimming pool. In nearby Lens, the Louvre-Lens museum – a satellite gallery of the Louvre – has 250 artworks arranged chronologically from the third century BC to the mid-19th century.
Warsaw’s art scene had a huge boost in 2024 with the opening of the Museum of Modern Art (MSN Warsaw). The bright white building stands in contrast to Stalin’s menacing Palace of Arts and Science next door, and showcases Polish and international artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Sarah Lucas and Wolfgang Tillmans. Other modern galleries include the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, which has 20th-century and contemporary art from painting to installation, video and performance. It has staged exhibitions by artists including Marlene Dumas and Luc Tuymens, and is currently showing the American abstract artist Barbara Kasten (until 7 June). The Ujazdów Castle now houses the Centre for Contemporary Art, with a diverse programme of exhibitions, talks, films and outdoor events in the surrounding park. Warsaw isn’t just about modern art. The National Museum, founded in 1862, is one of the oldest museums in the country. Its six permanent art galleries range from antiquity through medieval art to the 19th century. One highlight is Jan Matejko’s enormous Battle of Grunwald (1878), one of the best-known paintings in Poland. A temporary exhibition of 30 paintings by the Krakow-born artist Olga Boznańska (1865-1940), who also has work in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, runs until 5 July. At the Royal Castle, the two most prized paintings in the Lanckoroński Gallery are by an old master: The Girl in a Picture Frame and The Scholar at the Lectern by Rembrandt. A day trip to Łódź, a couple of hours away by train, has a trio of galleries covering 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century art.
