Library

Hours and consultation

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.

Winter closure: 22.12.2025 – 4.1.2026

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.

To download (in french)

Resources

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

Links

Searching the archives...

1989: Pierre Kuenzi requests access to the MCBA library

MCBA Publications

Yves Mettler, My Flowers aren’t always hiding secrets

Published to coincide with the “Pont Bessières” exhibition at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne and the “Yves Mettler. MANOR-Kunstpreis St.Gallen 2006” at the Kunstmuseum St.Gallen. 2006, fr./ge., 72 p.

CHF 36.-

Order

Tom Burr
Extrospective: Works 1994 – 2006

The first reference monograph in a bilingual (fr./en.) 160-page edition published by JRP|Ringier, Zurich, 2006. The book includes a preface by Yves Aupetitallot, previously unpublished texts by George Baker, Stuart Comer, Florence Derieux and Cerith Wyn Evans, and an interview with Tom Burr.

CHF 60.-

Order

Sophie Thun. Wet Rooms

Pierre-Henri Foulon (ed.), Sophie Thun. Wet Rooms, with a text by Hélène Giannecchini. Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, 2025, Coll. Espace Projet, no. 6, fr/en

CHF 8.-

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