Kulturstiftung Basel H. Geiger has opened a two-room exhibition dedicated to Basel native Irène Zurkinden (1909-87), her first major hometown show since the 1980s. The exhibition spans portraits, self-portraits, still-lifes, landscapes, drawings, and several sketchbooks on public view for the first time. Zurkinden studied fashion illustration in Basel before finishing her training at Paris’s Académie de la Grande Chaumière, inspired by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. She lived between Paris and Basel and was close friends with Meret Oppenheim, whose portrait by Zurkinden, Meret à l’orange (1932-35), is in Kunstmuseum Basel’s permanent collection and included in the show.
This exhibition matters because it redresses the long neglect of a significant Swiss modernist painter who has been overshadowed by her more famous contemporaries. By bringing Zurkinden’s work back into public view—including previously unseen sketchbooks—the show offers a rare opportunity to reassess her contribution to 20th-century art and her place within Basel’s cultural history. The simultaneous Oppenheim exhibition at Hauser & Wirth further contextualizes their artistic friendship and underscores the renewed attention to overlooked female artists.