The Museum Kunst Palast Reopens its Collection After Two years

Written by Edward Sherrin Friday, 27 April 2012 20:50

Dusseldorf.- After more than 2 years of closure, the Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf reopened its collection with a a selection of 450 selected works from the middle-ages to the present-day. As a living art museum with a diverse, cross-cultural archive, with the rich collection from the Düsseldorf Art Academy and the archive of the artistic photography of the Rhine Kunsszene (AFORK), the new presentation allows the Museum Kunst Palast to let these collections speak for themselves and illustrate the history of the Düsseldorf art collection. The new exhibition includes works from the collection of late medieval sculpture, Dutch and Flemish paintings of the 16th to 18 Century, European paintings from Romanticism to Impressionism, a special focus on the Düsseldorf School, works of German Expressionism, the ZERO group and post 195 color field painting.

Important aspects of Düsseldorf art life are clarified, reflected in the history of the collection, such as the information on the provenances of the painting by Peter Paul Rubens and the sculpture of Gabriel de Grupello from the collection of the Elector Johann Wilhelm of the Palatinate and his wife Anna Maria Luisa de Medici. Similarly, the origin of various exhibits from the applied arts collection of the former Museum of Decorative Arts are explored and explained. Works from the most important periods and movements in art history are all on show, from paintings to sculptures and statues, from exhibits taken from the textile collection to Oriental book covers, from small-scale exhibits of metal and goldsmithing to the most magnificent objects in the dining culture.

In a separate room on the first floor numerous photographs document the history of the museum. Among the highlights of the tour are the Rubens gallery with the paintings, "Assumption" and "Venus and Adonis" and works of other court artists of the Elector Jan shaft, for example, Jan Frans van Douven and the sculptor Gabriel de Grupello. The Rubens gallery is complemented by a "Gallery of Decoratori" from the collection of Baroque oil sketches, which is on the balcony of circulation. Other highlights are the rooms that were designed by artists themselves, such as Nam June Paik, with its overhead multi-monitor installation of "Fish Flies on Sky" (1983-1985), the space filled with works by Joseph Beuys or the 1964 'Documenta in Kassel Hommage à Fontana' jointly created by Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Gunther Uecker. In the field of art since 1945, the presentation is changed at regular intervals, owing to the considerable sizes and the large number o fpieces held in the collection. Thus the works of national and international artists such as Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Frank Stella, David Hockney, Antonio Calderara, and many others are placed in new work-appropriate contexts.


The Museum Kunst Palast was founded as Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, a typical communal arts collection in Germany. The first exhibits were given by the popular regent Jan Wellem, Duke of Palatinate, and his wife Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici and some rich citizens of Düsseldorf. The number of exhibits was expanded in the 19th century by the collection of Lambert Krahe, formerly a collection for educational reasons of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. The Düsseldorfer Gallerieverein, founded in 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, it became a foundation (in private-public partnership) called: "Stiftung museum kunst palast" in 2000. The Ehrenhof was built in 1925 for the exhibition "Gesundheit, soziale Fürsorge, Leibesübungen" (short „GESOLEI“, germ.: "health, social care and sports"). Construction plans of the building are made by the architect Wilhelm Kreis. The Communal Arts Collection and the Hetjens-Museum for ceramics moved into the Ehrenhof building in 1928. 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 Kunst Palast includes objects of fine arts from Classical antiquity to the present, including drawings, sculptures, a collection of more than 70,000 graphic exhibits and photographs, applied arts and design and one of Europe's largests glass collections. The graphic collection includes 14,000 Italian baroque graphics. The collection presents several works from Europe, Japan, Persia/Iran, beginning with the 3rd century BC. The art collection also include works from periods such as Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, the time of Goethe, the 19th century, the 20th century including a large collection of ZERO works, and the present. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.smkp.de

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