The Barbier-Muller Museum (Musee Barbier-Mueller) is a famous art museum in Geneva with an impressive collection of historic pieces from civilizations around the globe. In fact, from Africa to Oceania, Indonesia to America, the Barbier-Muller Museum has some 7,000 pieces representing the works of peoples from a variety of places and time periods.

The items at the Barbier-Muller Museum are also wide-ranging and include everything from fabrics to jewels, sculptures to ritual items.

The Barbier-Muller Museum history

The Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva was founded in 1977 by Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller in order to share his passion for the traditional arts with the public. Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller and his father in law Josef Mueller assembled the largest private collection of traditional arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania, pre-Columbian America and various ancient civilizations over the course of more than a hundred years.

Barbier-Mueller was committed to ensuring that the museum’s collections would be studied by the best specialists and would be exhibited and published. He sought to make known and encourage recognition for the non-Western arts, in Switzerland but also internationally, with itinerant exhibitions, loans to various museums throughout the world, and the founding of Barbier-Mueller museums in Barcelona and Cape Town.

The museum has gained international acclaim through itinerant exhibitions, loans to other museums, and the publication of numerous catalogues and art books.

The Barbier-Muller Museum today

The mission of the Barbier-Mueller Museum is to conserve, study, publish and exhibit a collection started by Josef Mueller in 1907. The collection today includes several thousand pieces from tribal and classical antiquity, as well as sculptures, fabrics and ornaments from various cultures of Africa, Oceania, Asia. and the Americas. Many of them are considered essential masterpieces of high historical value.

The Barbier-Mueller Museum organizes two thematic exhibitions each year bringing together a selection of objects from its collection.

The museum occupies the ground floor and the basement of a historic building of the 16th century. Its intimate atmosphere invites contemplation and dialogue with the works on display. In the summer, a pretty interior courtyard offers an appealing relaxation area.

Getting to the Barbier-Muller Museum

The museum is located in the heart of the old town of Geneva, near to the Saint-Pierre cathedral. The site is easily accessible by public transport and the nearest bus stops are Molard and Hôtel-de-Ville. There is also parking nearby.