It is dedicated to the full spectrum of the arts of the period between 1884, when the Société Libre des Beaux-Arts ("Free Society of Fine Arts") was founded Brussels, and 1914, the year of the outbreak of World War I.

[1] The museum, inaugurated on 6 December 2013, partly replaces the Royal Museum of Modern Art (French: Musée royal d'Art moderne; Dutch: Koninklijk Museum voor Moderne Kunst), closed on 1 February 2011, and is partially housed in its former halls.

[3][4] Artists represented in the museum's collection include Emile Claus, Eugène Laermans, Constantin Meunier, James Ensor, Henri Evenepoel, Fernand Khnopff, and Léon Spilliaert.

The museum also celebrates the richness of the period in literature, architecture, photography, opera, music, and poetry, featuring works by Maurice Maeterlinck, Emile Verhaeren, Octave Maus, Victor Horta, Henry Van de Velde, Maurice Kufferath, and Guillaume Lekeu.

Important international artists of the period in the collection include Alfred Sisley, Vincent van Gogh, Auguste Rodin, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, and Edward Burne-Jones.