Library

General information

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

Charles Gleyre. Le génie de l’invention

To coincide with the exhibition, a major monograph was published by 5 Continents, Milan, 2006, fr., 291 p. Texts by Marie Alamir, Thérèse Burollet, Patrick Shaw Cable, Danielle Chaperon, Guy Ducrey, Elizabeth Fischer, Dario Gamboni, Véronique Gély, Stéphane Guégan, William Hauptman, Philippe Junod, Philippe Kaenel, Catherine Lepdor, Daniel Maggetti, Linda Nochlin, Dominique Radrizzani, Claude Ritschard, Michel Thévoz, Pierre Vaisse, Bernard Vouilloux, Sylvie Wuhrmann, Franz Zelger.

CHF 85.-

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De la Renaissance au Romantisme
Peintures françaises et anglaises du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne

Edited by Frédéric Elsig, Les cahiers du Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, 2013, fr., 128 p.

CHF 25.-

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Silvie Defraoui. Le tremblement des certitudes

Laurence Schmidlin (ed.), Silvie Defraoui. Le tremblement des certitudes, with an essay by Laurence Schmidlin and a preface by Juri Steiner, Copublication by Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne and Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich, 2023, en./fr./ge., 120 p., 76 ill.

CHF 35.-

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