Die Pinakotheken

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The Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Bavarian State Painting Collections) is the entrusted custodian of a very substantial part of the public art collections belonging to the Free State of Bavaria, as well as the museums in which the artworks are on show:

in Munich the Alte Pinakothek,
the Neue Pinakothek,
the Sammlung Moderne Kunst (located in the Pinakothek der Moderne),
the Museum Brandhorst and
the Sammlung Schack, as well as an additional thirteen public art galleries spread across Bavaria.

The Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen’s administrative offices are housed in the western wing of the Neue Pinakothek. It is here that art historians with various specialisms work alongside scientists and conservators from the affiliated Doerner Institut and dozens of support staff to manage, preserve, and study the extensive holdings of more than 30,000 valuable objects.

»Milestones of European Painting« – In a unique concentration of artworks, the Alten Pinakothek presents the development of art from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance and the Baroque up to the end of the Rococo period. The collection comprises more than 700 artworks from the glittering epochs of German, Flemish, Netherlandish, French, Italian and Spanish painting. Leo von Klenze’s neoclassical building (completed in 1836), groundbreaking for European museum architecture at the time, provides the setting for this treasure trove of occidental art.

»From Goya to Picasso« is the guiding motto for the Neuen Pinakothek’s collection. In the mid-19th century, King Ludwig I founded the Neue Pinakothek as the first public museum in Europe exclusively dedicated to contemporary art. Included in the collection are key works from the neoclassicist and Romantic periods, art nouveau and Impressionism, the Nazarene brotherhood and Deutschrömer or ‘German Roman’ artists, as well as major pioneers of modernism. After its destruction in the Second World War, the architect Alexander von Branca designed the building that houses the collection today.

With four major museums under one roof, the Pinakothek Der Moderne is one of the largest museums in the world for art, architecture and design of the 20th and 21st centuries. The architecture of the spacious building with the glass-roofed rotunda invites visitors to explore links between the museums and gain new and surprising insights. Exhibitions and events from a variety of cultural fields complete the interdisciplinary agenda.

Spectacular architecture and two important work complexes by Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly characterise the Museum Brandhorst in the ‘Kunstareal’ Munich in addition to other works by Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Mike Kelley, Bruce Nauman and Damien Hirst, among others.

Franz Lenbach’s Young Shepherd, and Moritz von Schwind’s Rübezahl and Des Knaben Wunderhorn (or ‘Youth’s Magic Horn’) – anyone growing up in Germany has seen these images, but where are the original paintings? The answer: the Sammlung Schack, a jewel among Munich’s many museums. Pictures of legends and fairy tales speak of distant lands and times past. After a period of renovation, the museum now presents its collection in a new guise and invites visitors to explore the visions and ideas of the German Romantics.

Credit: Image of Pinakothek