Moments from Moderna Museet

Sweden's museum of modern and contemporary art opened in 1958 on Skeppsholmen, a small island in central Stockholm that once served as a naval base, and the building was substantially renovated by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo in the late 1990s. Despite its relatively modest size compared to the great continental collections, Moderna Museet built, largely through sharp early acquisitions, a genuinely significant Surrealist holding, major Dali and Picasso works among them, alongside one of Europe's most important collections of early and mid-twentieth-century photography.

The island setting is worth factoring into your visit, Skeppsholmen is reached by a short bridge from central Stockholm and has a quiet, almost campus-like atmosphere that's rare for a major national museum, with views back across the water to the old town. Because the collection punches well above its size for such a small country's population, don't assume a quick pace, the Surrealist and photography holdings in particular reward slower, closer looking than their relatively modest gallery footprint might suggest at first glance.