PROFILPELAJAR.COM

Hamburger Kunsthalle
Established	20 August 1869
Location	Glockengießerwall ; 20095 Hamburg, Germany
Coordinates	53°33′18″N 10°00′11″E / 53.55500°N 10.00306°E
Type	Art museum
Visitors	382,000 (2013)
Director	Alexander Klar
Owner	Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
Public transit access	Hauptbahnhof Nord
Website	hamburger-kunsthalle.de

The Hamburger Kunsthalle is the art museum of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Germany. It is one of the largest art museums in the country. It consists of three connected buildings, dating from 1869 (main building), 1921 (Kuppelsaal) and 1997 (Galerie der Gegenwart), located in the Altstadt district between the Hauptbahnhof (central train station) and the two Alster lakes.

The name Kunsthalle indicates the museum's history as an 'art hall' when it was founded in 1850. Today, it houses one of the few art collections in Germany that cover seven centuries of European art, from the Middle Ages to the present day. Its permanent collections focus on North German painting of the 14th century, paintings by Dutch, Flemish and Italian artists of the 16th and 17th centuries, French and German drawings and paintings of the 19th century, and international modern and contemporary art.

History

The museum collection traces its origin to 1849, when it was initially established by the Hamburg Kunstverein, which was founded in 1817. The collection opened to the public a year later as the Städtische Gallerie (municipal painting gallery).

The collection grew quickly, and it soon became necessary to provide a suitable building. The original red-brick Kunsthalle building was constructed from 1863 to 1869. It was designed by architects Georg Theodor Schirrmacher and Hermann von der Hude, and financed largely through private donations.

The Kunsthalle's first director was the art historian and educator Alfred Lichtwark (1852–1914). His successor during the interwar period was Gustav Pauli. He oversaw the completion of the Kuppelsaal (domed-hall) extension, the museum's first annex, designed by Fritz Schumacher and erected between 1914 and 1921.

In 1994, a painting of the Kunsthalle was involved in the so-called Frankfurt art theft. While on loan to the Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt, the painting Nebelschwaden by Caspar David Friedrich was stolen. After negotiations with the thieves, a lawyer bought back the painting; when the Kunsthalle refused to pay him the agreed "consideration", he sued and won.^{[citation needed]}

In 1997, the museum opened the Galerie der Gegenwart building, an extension of 5,600 square metres (60,000 sq ft) that was designed by Cologne architect Oswald Mathias Ungers and that is dedicated to the Kunsthalle's contemporary art collections. The cubic building sits on a monolithic base at a prominent location in close proximity to the Binnenalster.

Collections

The Kunsthalle is divided into four different sections: the Gallery of Old Masters, the Gallery of 19th-century Art, the Gallery of Classical Modernism, and the Gallery of Contemporary Art.

The highlights of the collection include the medieval alters of Master Bertram and Master Francke, 17th-century Dutch paintings, works of early to mid 19th-century German Romanticism, and collections of impressionism and classic modernism. The Kunsthalle is also known for its international contemporary art collections and exhibitions, which include post-1950 Pop Art, conceptual art, video art and photography.

Edvard Munch:
Madonna (1895)
Franz Marc:
Elephant (1907)
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner:
Self-portrait with model (1910)
Fernand Léger:
Woman with a Cat (1921) (1 of 2 versions, 97.5 x 70.5 x 5.5 cm)
Paul Klee:
Revolution of the Viaduct (1937)

Contemporary art

The Gallery of Contemporary Art shows works by Joseph Beuys, Tracey Emin, David Hockney, Rebecca Horn, Ilya Kabakov, On Kawara, Yves Klein, Kitty Kraus, Robert Morris, Hermann Nitsch, George Segal, Richard Serra, Franz Erhard Walther, and Andy Warhol, among others.

Temporary exhibitions

The Hamburg Kunsthalle continuously carries out temporary exhibitions on contemporary and historic art, in addition to its constant rotation of temporary exhibitions. Yearly there are on average 20 special exhibitions.

2002: Miron Schmückle. Fountains of Joy. Improved Formula^[2]
2010–2011: Cosmos Runge. The Dawn of Romanticism
2011–2012: Max Liebermann. Pioneer of Modern Art
2012–2013: Giacometti. The Playing Fields
2013–2014: Serial Attitudes, Repetition as an artistic method since the 1960s
2013–2014: Alfred Flechtheim.com, Art Dealer of the Avant-Garde
2014–2015: ars viva Prize for Fine Arts
2014–2015: Max Beckmann. The Still Lifes
2014–2015: Feuerbach's Muses — Lagerfeld's Models
2014–2016: SPOT ON, Masterpieces from the Hamburger Kunsthalle
2015–2016: Nolde in Hamburg^[3]
2023–2024: Caspar David Friedrich^[4]^[5]

Gallery

Old staircase
Stairwell at the entrance
Exhibition hall

Nazi looted art controversies

In December 2023, the museum received public criticism for its response to a restitution claim by the family of Holocaust victim Robert Graetz concerning Paula Modersohn-Becker's painting Girl's Head. Listed for more than twenty years on the German Lost Art Foundation's website, the painting passed through the Nazi art dealer Konrad Doebbeke and was gifted to the museum by Doebbeke's widow. The museum director Alexander Klar rejected the claim stating, "It is simply not clear whether this work is the one that hung in the Robert Graetz collection.^[6]

References

^ "Rekordbilanz: Mehr als 382.000 Besucher in der Kunsthalle (10.01.2014)". abendblatt.de (in German). Hamburger Abendblatt, Hamburg. Archived from the original on 6 June 2016. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
^ "Standpunkt: MIRON SCHMÜCKLE | Hamburger Kunsthalle". www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de. Archived from the original on 3 February 2023. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
^ "Nolde in Hamburg". Hamburger Kunsthalle. 18 September 2015. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
^ "Caspar David Friedrich". Hamburger Kunsthalle. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
^ "Eröffnung der Ausstellung "Caspar David Friedrich. Kunst für eine neue Zeit"". Der Bundespräsident (in German). Retrieved 14 December 2023.
^ Kalkreuth, Ulf. "Nazi looted art in the Hamburg Kunsthalle? Das Erste 17 December 2023". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 27 January 2024.

External links

Official website (in German and English)
Freunde der Kunsthalle (friends' association) (in German)
- Online shop (in German and English)
The Cube Restaurant in the Gallery of Contemporary Art of the Hamburger Kunsthalle (in German and English)
Hamburger Kunsthalle on Hamburg Tourism (in German and English)