Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum tickets and tours

Why the crazy name? The museum is named after Swiss art enthusiast Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, who made his money in glass, plastics, auto parts, and container leasing. His private collection of sculptures, tapestries and over 1,000 old and modern-master paintings was the second largest after Queen Elizabeth’s of England. ‘Bornemisza’ apparently means “drinks no wine” in Hungarian.

Bringing the art to Madrid was controversial from the start. Initially, he implied that he would donate the collection for free and he persuaded the city to build the facilities. Then he decided to rent the collection for 5 million USD a year until he eventually agreed to sell it to Spain for 350 million USD. This all proved very unpopular and the newspapers were unhappy, but the baron joked that he couldn’t read Spanish.

Unlike his traditionalist father, Heinrich had a taste for modern art and collected German Expressionist painters such as Kirchner, Nolde and Grosz. He also bought Impressionist, Cubist, and Futurist works. Though the Spanish press was angry with him, Madrid got a good deal: the collection’s estimated value is 2 billion USD and the museum is now one of the city’s most beloved magnets for art-lovers.

Opening times

Permanent collection

Monday: 12.00pm-4.00pm; Tuesday-Sunday: 10.00am-7.00pm; Saturday: 10.00am-7.00pm

About the museum

The Thyssen-Bornemisza is ideally situated opposite the Prado and very close to the Reina Sofia Modern Art Museum. At the Thyssen, you’ll find an eclectic combination of German Renaissance, seventeenth-century Dutch, Impressionism, German Expressionism, Russian Constructivism and Pop Art. Its collection of nineteenth-century North American painting is a rare treasure outside the USA.

Among the more famous painters at the Thyssen-Bornemisza, you’ll discover Duccio, Van Eyck, Carpaccio, Lucas Cranach, Dürer, Caravaggio, Rubens, Frans Hals, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Kirchner, Mondrian, Klee, Hopper and Rauschenberg. There is also a regularly changing calendar of temporary and traveling exhibitions so you can always see something new.

The museum’s original home is the nineteenth-century Villahermosa, which was once Madrid’s Lyceum of Arts and Letters. In the twentieth century, it was an annex to the Prado until 1989, when it became the HQ of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. You’ll also find part of the museum’s collection at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona.

Address

Paseo del Prado, 8
28014
Madrid

Getting there

Underground:

• Line 2: Banco de España station

Buses:

• Lines: 1, 2, 5, 9, 10, 14, 15, 20, 27, 34, 37, 41, 51, 52, 53, 74, 146 & 150

Train:

• Atocha station

• Recoletos station

Bike:

• Closest BiciMad station: no. 29, Calle Marqués de Cubas, 25