In September 2011 the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen or KMSKA) closed its doors as it embarked on a radical restoration which is set to last several years. In anticipation of the reopening the Antwerp museum has loaned sixteen masterpieces from its collection to the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent.
Mobile collections
In the frame of the collection mobility project of the Flemish Art Collection (Vlaamse kunstcollectie or VKC, the partnership of the art historical museums of Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, Ostend and Leuven), Groeningemuseum in Bruges will include several fifteenth- and sixteenth-century masterpieces of KMSKA in its permanent exhibits. The MSK opted to exhibit nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art works, corresponding to the core collection of the museum.
Instead of focussing on artists that are not represented in our collection, the MSK preferred to emphasise an interaction with the permanent collection. The selection spans a century of visual arts production, with works by such artists as Henri Leys, Henri De Braekeleer, George Grosz and Ossip Zadkine.