Museum voor Schone Kunsten Gent

At the end of the 18th century, Ghent was under French rule. The French confiscated important art treasures, which can now be seen in the Louvre, among other places. In 1798, it was decided to assemble a public collection in Ghent. This then still modest collection was for a short time housed in the St. Peter's Church, until in 1809 it was provisionally accommodated in a room of the Municipal Academy.

Over the years, the basic collection changed only slightly. In 1837, the city council purchased a painting by a contemporary artist for the first time, which came from the Ghent Triennial Salon. Since then, the city continued to purchase works at salons, hence the museum's very extensive collection of 19th-century art. In 1860, the museum bought its first work by an old master.

It was not until the end of the 19th century that the collection of ancient art was greatly expanded. This was due to the foundation of the association 'The Friends of the Museum'. Fernand Scribe, chairman of the Friends of the Museum, donated his entire collection to the city in 1913. Other important donors were Georges Hulin de Loo, Tony Simon-Wolfskehl, widow Lasnitzki and Raoul De Keyser.

The spectacular growth of the collection, thanks to numerous purchases and donations, meant that a new location was soon required. In 1820, Tieleman Franciscus Suys drew up the first plan for a new museum building. It was not until 1898 that the final design and location were determined.

The collection, supplemented with loans, is opened each year through temporary exhibitions. In January 2018, the museum was discredited for exhibiting 24 loans from the Toporovski Collection whose authenticity was disputed by experts. After criticism in the press, the museum management removed the artworks, whether real or alleged, and called for research by art experts. In March 2018, director Cathérine de Zegher was dismissed from her position by the city, on suspicions of forgery surrounding the loan, because she could not provide proof that she had conducted research on the collection prior to the loan, and after it turned out that she had made false statements at the city's culture committee.

In January 2020, the exhibition 'Van Eyck, an optical revolution' started. There, 13 original works by Jan van Eyck were brought together, along with another 9 works from his studio. Due to the corona crisis, the exhibition had to be stopped prematurely. Nevertheless, 'Van Eyck, an optical revolution' did win the international Apollo Award for 'Exhibition of the year'.

The museum’s archive relates to the operation of the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent as a city service and includes financial, administrative, technical and HR files. The reports of the supervisory committee (1903-2007) are especially important as this committee was the museum’s beating heart. Its members included prominent local politicians, artists and experts. Together with the curator, they charted a course for the museum. The committee reports indirectly also paint a historical picture of artistic and cultural thinking in Ghent.

In 1898, exactly one hundred years after the museum was founded, the decision was made to build a new museum building. It is located in Citadel Park, close to the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art. It was built between 1900 and 1904 to the design of architect Charles van Rysselberghe. He created a building with an enormous openness and spaciousness. It was conceived as a traditional art temple in neoclassical style.

For the 1913 World Fair, the museum was greatly expanded, also designed by Charles van Rysselberghe. This doubled the surface area of the museum.

During the Second World War, the museum became a ruin and only in 1951 could the collection return to the renovated museum building. Between 2003 and 2007, the museum was again thoroughly renovated and redesigned.

In 1975, the Stedelijk Museum for Contemporary Art was founded. The collection of art after 1950, with a few exceptions, moved. In 2011, the two museums collaborated for the first time during the exhibition 'Hareng Saur, Ensor and Contemporary Art'. Soon the museum square, designed by Wim Goes and Aldrik Heirman, will be redesigned between both museums.

About 90 percent of the library’s collection and the precious reserve can be consulted online at www.cageweb.be and at www.unicat.be.

CaGeWeb or the Catalogue of the Ghent Scientific Libraries provides access to about 20 Ghent scientific libraries. Unicat or 'Union Catalogue of Belgian Libraries' is an umbrella catalogue, providing access to the collections of various Belgian scientific libraries.

The titles of the journals in the journal collection are listed on Antilope.