The Museum of Fine Arts is the guardian of the artistic heritage of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, and of the contemporary art scene in Charleroi and the region around it, the Hainaut basin and more broadly, Wallonia. This vast collection of paintings, sculptures, etchings, drawings, photographs, ceramics, videos and installations focuses on the works of artists who have a connection to the area through having been born there, having lived and worked there or having been inspired by it. The Museum is also interested in contemporary artists who in one way or another evoke this area and the major societal and human concerns proper to the age we live in. The fact that it has been assembled by reference to these criteria enables this collection to weave together the diverse threads in the history of art, both national and international, be it neoclassicism, Romanticism, Orientalism, Realism, Neo- and Post-Impressionism, Abstraction, Surrealism or modern-day art.