The Kunstpalast, formerly Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf is an art museum in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...

History

The roots of the museum go back around 300 years. In 1932, the collection of the

Kunstakademie Düsseldorf The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf is the academy of fine arts of the state of North Rhine Westphalia at the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Notable artists who studied or taught at the academy include Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Magdalena Jetelová ...

(Academy of Art) was housed in the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf. This included the exhibits given by the popular regent Jan Wellem, Duke of Palatinate, and his wife

Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici (11 August 1667 – 18 February 1743) was an Italian noblewoman who was the last lineal descendant of the main branch of the House of Medici. A patron of the arts, she bequeathed the Medicis' large art collection, in ...

, and some rich citizens of Düsseldorf. The academy had been founded in 1710, its collection expanded in the 19th century by the collection of Lambert Krahe. The Düsseldorfer Gallerieverein, founded in the 19th century, collected many drawings of the Düsseldorfer Malerschule, later given to that collection. The Museum for Advanced Arts, whose opening was in 1883, merged with that museum later. The Kunstmuseum in its actual form opened in 1913. Subsequently, the Museumsverein (the Museum Association) and the Künstler-Verein zur Veranstaltung von Kunstausstellungen (the Artists’ Association for the Realisation of Art Exhibitions) collaborated in the organisation of art exhibitions, and the foundation Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast was established in 1998. In January 2020, the NRW Forum became part of the Kunstpalast.

Architecture

In 1902, the first Kunstpalast was erected at Ehrenhof ("court of honour"), for a major exhibition featuring artworks as well as industrial and trade items. A new building in

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style was designed by Wilhelm Kreis in 1926, for an exhibition on health care, social care and exercise, called "

GeSoLei The GeSoLei (german: Große Ausstellung Düsseldorf 1926 für Gesundheitspflege, soziale Fürsorge und Leibesübungen) was the largest trade fair in Germany during the Weimar Republic. It attracted 7.5 million visitors. The name was constructed fro ...

". The Communal Arts Collection and the for

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

(

applied arts The applied arts are all the arts that apply design and decoration to everyday and essentially practical objects in order to make them aesthetically pleasing."Applied art" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Art''. Online edition. Oxford Univ ...

moved into the Ehrenhof building in 1928. In 1969 the ceramics moved to the at the Schulstraße in Düsseldorf-Carlstadt. There is also the '' NRW-Forum Kultur und Wirtschaft'' (forum for culture and economy of North Rhine-Westphalia) in the same building complex. The museum was extensively remodelled by

Oswald Mathias Ungers Oswald Mathias Ungers (12 July 1926 – 30 September 2007) was a German architect and architectural theorist, known for his rationalist designs and the use of cubic forms. Among his notable projects are museums in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Colog ...

and reopened in 2001.

Collection

The Museum Kunstpalast includes objects of fine arts from

Classical antiquity Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...

to the present, including drawings,

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

s, a collection of more than 70,000 graphic exhibits and

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created ...

, applied arts and

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...

and one of Europe's largest glass collections, the Helmut Hentrich Glass Museum./ The graphic collection includes 14,000

Italian baroque Italian Baroque (or ''Barocco'') is a stylistic period in Italian history and art that spanned from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. History The early 17th century marked a time of change for those of the Roman Catholic religion ...

graphics. The collection presents several works from

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

, Japan,

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, beginning with the 3rd century BC. The art collection also include works from periods such as Gothic,

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

, Baroque, the time of

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...

, the 19th century, the 20th century including a large collection of

ZERO 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by multiplying digits to the left of 0 by the radix, usual ...

works, and the present.

Restitution of Franz Marc's The Foxes

In 2017, the family of the German Jewish art collector Kurt Grawi requested the restitution of Franz Marc's painting The Foxes (1913) ("Die Füchse") which had been acquired by Grawi in 1928. When the Nazis rose to power in 1933, they persecuted Grawi because he was Jewish, "Aryanizing" his business in 1935 and imprisoning him in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1938. Grawi fled Germany for Chile in 1939, selling the painting to fund his escape. In 2021, the German Advisory Commission recommended that the city of Düsseldorf restitute the painting to Grawi's heirs and the Düsseldorf City Council voted to restitute the painting. In January 2022 Düsseldorf restituted Marc's The Foxes ("Die Füchse" ) to the Grawi heirs.

Gallery

File:Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Osteingang 2011.jpg, Entrance Eastern wing File:Museum Kunstpalast - Eingang Westflügel (8235-37).jpg, Entrance Western wing File:Interiors at Museum KunstPalast Düsseldorf-1.jpg File:Interiors at Museum KunstPalast Düsseldorf-5.jpg, ''The Assumption of the Virgin Mary'' by

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradi ...

Affiliated Institutes

*The Archive for artistical photography of the rhenanian artscene (AFORK) is part of the Modern Department and has an extension collection of prints and will be part of a future Research Center for the Arts at the museum. *The ZERO foundation, founded by the Museum Kunst Palast together with the three ZERO artists Heinz Mack, Günther Uecker und Otto Piene, has temporary offices, with an extensive archive, in the New Harbour, and will be part of a future Research Center for the Arts at the museum.

Exhibitions

Among several exhibitions of archival material, the Museum Kunstpalast has already hosted some exhibitions on Old Masters as well, including: *An exhibition of paintings by Caravaggio (from 2006 to 2007) *The biggest exhibition of El Greco paintings in Germany since several decades. The exhibition showed their influence on Modern Art. It took place in 2012 *An exhibition of paintings by Spanish baroque painter

Francisco de Zurbarán Francisco de Zurbarán ( , ; baptized 7 November 1598 – 27 August 1664) was a Spanish painter. He is known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs, and for his still-lifes. Zurbarán gained the nickname "Spanish ...

(from 2015 to 2016)

References

* ''museum kunst palast, Düsseldorf'' with articles written by Bettina Baumgärtel, Sonja Brink, Christoph Danelzik-Brüggemann, Jean-Hubert Martin, Helmut Ricke, Dieter Scholz, Barbara Til, Stephan von Wiese. Book series of the Fondation BNP Paribas. Paris 2003 (in German, English and French) * Bogomir Ecker, Thomas Huber: ''Künstlermuseum''.

External links

*
ZERO foundation websiteVirtual tour of the Museum Kunstpalast
provided by Google Arts & Culture * {{Authority control Art museums established in 1913 Art museums and galleries in Germany Museums in Düsseldorf 1913 establishments in Germany Convention centres in Germany