No history of modern art collecting would be complete without the pioneering role of the Kunsthalle, founded in 1849. Initially created by a group of German citizens committed to art, it eventually held public exhibitions and created its own collection; years later, the Kunsthalle Museum in Bremen, northern Germany, was built to house the art. Now, a selection of works from its holdings makes its way to Bilbao, a similarly picturesque city in northern Spain. The exhibition explores the aesthetics of two cultural epicenters of late-19th- and early-20th-century art: Germany (think Kirchner, Beckmann) and France (Cézanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, to name a few). —J.V.