Library

Hours and consultation

Summer closure

  • From 4.8.2025 to 24.8.2025 included

Winter closure

  • From 22.12.2025 to 4.1.2026 included

Tuesday-Friday: 2pm – 6pm (Except public holidays)

On-site consultation, on request:

Free access:

  • A selection of books about artists represented in the collection, in connection with current exhibitions or about a museum’s life and activities; periodicals about fine arts.

Contact

Bibliothèque du Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts
Place de la Gare 16
1003 Lausanne
bibliotheque.mcba@plateforme10.ch
+41 21 318 44 50

Art history, artists, museology, the art market, cultural mediation, conservation, private collections…

The MCBA library offers a specialised collection of materials on the visual arts from the 19th century to today. The collection covers painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, video, and new media, with special emphasis on the artists who are part of the museum’s collections, artists from Vaud and the arts in the canton. Some 40,000 items (exhibition and museum catalogues, monographs on artists, specialised periodicals, auction house catalogues) are available for on-site consultation.

The library also conserves the archives of both MCBA and the Association des Amis du musée. It maintains as well the Balthus Archives, which are on long-term loan to the museum, and the library of the Toms Pauli Foundation.

Resources

The complete catalogue of the MCBA's library: search here

Links

MCBA Publications

Resistance Anew – Culture, Artworks & Democracy

Bernard Fibicher (ed.), with essays by Mieke Bal, Pascal Chabot, Markus Gabriel, Isabelle Graw, Mary Jane Jacob, Plínio Prado, Andrew Ross, Gregory Sholette, Markus Steinweg, and Michel Thévoz. Co-published by the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts of Lausanne and JRP Editions, Geneva, 2022, 2 available editions: en./fr., 176 p.

CHF 25.–

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Private View 1980-2000
Collection Pierre Huber

Catalogue de même titre que l’exposition est publié par les éditions JRP׀Ringier, Zurich. Edité par Yves Aupetitallot, fr./en., 272p.

CHF 45.-

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August Strindberg, de la mer au cosmos. Peintures et photographies

Edited by Camille Lévêque-Claudet. Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts and Les Éditions Noir sur Blanc, 2016, fr.

CHF 52.-

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