Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao (Bilbao Fine Arts Museum), Bilbao (must see)

The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum (Spanish: Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Basque: Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa) is an art museum located in the city of Bilbao, Spain. The building of the museum is located entirely inside the city's Doña Casilda Iturrizar park.

It is the second largest and most visited museum in the Basque Country, after the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum and one of the richest Spanish museums outside Madrid. It houses a valuable and quite comprehensive collection of Basque, Spanish and European art from the Middle Ages to contemporary, including paintings by old masters like El Greco, Cranach, Sofonisba Anguissola, Murillo, Goya, Luis Paret, Van Dyck, Ruisdael and Bellotto, together with 19th century and modern: Gustave Doré, Sorolla, Mary Cassatt, Paul Gauguin, Henri Le Sidaner, James Ensor, Jacques Lipchitz, Peter Blake, Francis Bacon and Richard Serra.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao was established in 1908. After moving through various venues, the final headquarters were built in 1945, in a great neoclassical building that was to undertake paths expansions in 1970 and 2001 to house the growing museum collection.

The collection of the present Bilbao Fine Arts Museum originated with the merger of the collections from the first Museo de Bellas Artes, inaugurated in 1914, and the Museo de Arte Moderno (Museum of Modern Art) in 1924. In 2008 the Museum of Fine Arts of Bilbao reached its century under the slogan "100 Years of History, 10 Centuries of Art".

During more than 100 years of history, the collaboration between civil society, local artists and public institutions has enabled the museum to gather an extensive collection, considered one of the most important and diverse of all Spain. Its creation is unique taking into account the importance of bequests and donations from diverse patrons and benefactors, as well as the continuous effort of the museum itself to expand through major acquisitions. Since its inception, the interest in establishing a representative artistic compendium has allowed to refine the selection criteria, and, as a result, the museum can offer and present a panoramic lengthy art history to its visitors.

In its role as a public cultural entity, the main mission is to collect, preserve, study and exhibit its own collection, pursue their enrichment, maintain services and promote quality activities in order to contribute decisively to the education of the society and projection of the cultural values of the Basque Autonomous Community.

Notable for the lengthy period it covers (from the 12th century to the present day) and the extraordinary variety of art works acquired since its inception, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum collection currently boasts more than ten thousand works including 1,500 paintings, 400 sculptures, more than 6,500 works on paper and 1,000 pieces of art applied.

These works are spread over 33 rooms corresponding to the permanent exhibition, and the museum's collection is divided into five main sections: ancient art, modern and contemporary art, Basque art, works on paper and applied arts. The collection combines classical art, contemporary art and creations by Basque artists, as well as a small display of applied arts.

The backbone of the collection is the Spanish school whose ancient and modern examples of Basque art are also part of the contemporary age. The broad representation of other schools such as the Flemish and Dutch during the 15th - 17th centuries, unique works of the Italian school, as well as some examples of Avant-garde and Post-Impressionism provide Spanish and Basque art with an international context.

The collection combines classical art (Cranach, El Greco, Van Dyck, Goya), contemporary art (Bacon, Kitaj, Serra and Tàpies) and creations by Basque artists (Regoyos, Zuloaga and Echevarría), as well as a small display of applied arts. The exhibition is presented in chronological order, and covers the period from the 17th century to the present day. The collection contains over 10,000 works composed by 1,500 paintings, 400 sculptures, more than 6,500 works on paper and 1,000 pieces of art applied.