The Brücke Museum in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

houses the world's largest collection of works by members of the group ''

Die Brücke Die Brücke (The Bridge), also known as Künstlergruppe Brücke or KG Brücke, was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. The founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt-R ...

'' ("The Bridge"), an early 20th-century German expressionist movement.

Collection

Opened in 1967, it features around 400 paintings and sculptures and several thousand drawings, watercolours and prints by members of ''Die Brücke'', the movement founded in 1905 in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

. The collection includes a donation from the painter Karl Schmidt-Rottluff to the state of Berlin, and a later donation from

Erich Heckel Erich Heckel (31 July 1883 – 27 January 1970) was a German people, German Painting, painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the group ''Die Brücke'' ("The Bridge") which existed 1905–1913. His work was part of the art competition ...

featuring key works from the early years of the movement. In 2006,

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German Expressionism, expressionist Painting, painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expr ...

's '' Berlin Street Scene'' (1913) that had been hanging in the Brücke Museum since 1980 was returned to the heirs of a Jewish family who owned it before World War II. In 2024, the museum reached a settlement with the heirs of Jewish art dealer Victor Wallerstein who was forced to sell Kirchner's ''Erich Heckel and Otto Mueller Playing Chess'' (1913), which eventually ended up in the museum’s collection, after he fled Nazi Germany. Also in 2024, the Brücke Museum returned Max Pechstein's drawing ''Two Female Dancers'' (1910) to the heirs of German economist Hans Heymann who had initially filed their claim in 2016.

Exhibitions

In 2012, the Brücke Museum loaned a substantial part of its collection, with more than 120 paintings, drawings and woodcuts, to the Museum of Grenoble.

Location

The museum is located in an idyllic natural setting in Dahlem, not far from the former studio of the sculptor

Arno Breker Arno Breker (19 July 1900 – 13 February 1991) was a German sculptor who is best known for his public works in Nazi Germany, where he was endorsed by the authorities as the antithesis of degenerate art. He was made official state sculptor, ...

. It conducts research into works by the founding members of the movement and their early 20th-century milieu and contemporaries.Forschung
. Brücke-Museum. Retrieved 24 December 2019. The museum presents both a continually changing selection of its own works, and frequent special exhibitions of works on loan.

Notes

External links

Brücke Museum website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brucke Museum Art museums and galleries in Berlin Buildings and structures in Steglitz-Zehlendorf Modern art museums in Germany Art museums and galleries established in 1967 1967 establishments in West Germany