The Bass Museum of Art, Contemporary art museum in Miami Beach, United States.
The Bass Museum of Art occupies the former Miami Beach Public Library, a pale rough-hewn stone building with a flat roofline set behind a paved plaza. Its central block holds three vertical bays: glass double doors flanked by poster windows, with four small square openings high near the roof. Arata Isozaki designed a 1,500 m2 expansion inaugurated in 2002, and David Gauld's 2017 addition brought four new galleries.
John and Johanna Bass, Jewish immigrants from Vienna, bequeathed more than 500 Old Master paintings, textiles and sculptures to the City of Miami Beach in 1963, on condition that a museum stay open to the public in perpetuity. The Bass opened on 7 April 1964 in the former Miami Beach Public Library, renovated for $160,000, and was then the only municipally operated art gallery in South Florida. John Bass directed it until his death in 1978.
The Bass takes its name from John and Johanna Bass, Viennese Jewish immigrants who collected Old Master paintings, textiles and sculptures. Their 1963 bequest of more than 500 works came with the condition that a museum stay open to the public in perpetuity. The permanent collection spans 15th-century European painting to 7th- to 20th-century textiles and ecclesiastical vestments, shown alongside rotating contemporary exhibitions.
The museum is at 2121 Park Avenue, a block from Collins Park and the beach, and is open daily from 11:00 to 16:00. The entrance is up stone steps through the central glass doors; the galleries, including the first-floor Riccardo and Tatyana Silva Gallery, sit inside the expanded building.
The museum's building was formerly the Miami Beach Public Library, and the city spent $160,000 to renovate it before the April 7, 1964 opening. John Bass, a Fajardo Sugar Company president and amateur painter, composer and collector, directed the museum until his death in 1978. His manuscript collection is now held at Carnegie Hall.
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