Three venues for a thousand years of art

Considered one of the most important museums in the world, it hosts the country’s main art collection and is spread out over three venues. The original museum was inaugurated in 1936 (although the municipal collection dates back to 1661), while the two separate branches were opened - just a few metres away - in 1980 and 2016. The Hauptbau, or rather the main building, is home to the permanent collection. The municipal collection is on the ground floor, while the mezzanine is reserved for the Im Obersteg collection as well as prints and drawings. Medieval and Renaissance art is on the second floor, together with works from between the17th and 19th centuries, while the third floor is dedicated to modernism. 

The second building, the Gegenwart, shows contemporary art belonging to the museum and to the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, as well as temporary exhibitions, and also plays host to conferences and round tables. Lastly, connected to the Hauptbau by an underground passage, the Neubau hosts temporary exhibitions and presentations. The most important events are set up in the skylighted galleries on the third floor, while post-1950 art treasures are shown on the other floors of the gallery and in the underground passageway.

From 5 June to 26 September, the Neubau will be the setting of the exhibition “A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to be”, dedicated to the American artist Kara Walker (1969). Famous since the Nineties for her provocative images through which she unapologetically examines the history of her country, Walker presents hundreds of drawings from her archive. The highly technical works reflect the chiaroscuro contrasts of Goya, the vibrant lines of James Esnor and a grotesque emphasis that harks back to William Hogarth.
The Neubau will also be presenting a totally different style of exhibition from 5 September to 23 January 2022. “The Studio of Modernism”, dedicated to Camille Pissarro (1830 - 1903) covers his career, and in doing so examines the birth of Modernism.
The exhibition places particular focus on the artist’s collaborations with his peers: Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt. A retrospective that shows the central role played by Pissarro in the Impressionist movement and how his continuous exchange of ideas with his colleagues can be seen as playing a vital role in catalysing the development of painting in the second half of the 19th century.