The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Museum houses the large art collection of the German Federal State of Nordrhein-Westphalia, of which Düsseldorf is capital.  The initial collection of the museum began in 1960 with 88 works by Paul Klee from the collection of Pittsburg steel manufacturer, G. David Thompson, the purchased brokered by the Basel art dealer, Ernest Beyeler. In 1961, the museum was officially founded under the title Stifftung Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen. Between 1962 and 1991, the first director, Werner Schmalenbach assembled a collection of classical modernist artworks making this museum the only regional collection in Germany to specialize in modern art. The works of art from before 1945 include examples of the following art movements: Fauvism, Expressionsm, Pittura Metafisica  and Cubism. It also includes works by the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider group), Dada, and Surrealism. There are now 100 works by Paul Klee in the collection, plus 12 works by Picasso focusing on each of his creative phases. Cubism is represented not only by Picasso, but also by Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger and others. The collection also includes 40 major pieces by the following American artists in the category of Art after 1945: Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, and Jackson Pollock (including his monumental work Number 32, one of his few monumental drip paintings). Postwar European art is represented in works by Markus Lüpertz, Per Kirkeby, Gerhard Richter and Joseph Beuys. In former years of our travels to Düsseldorf, Henry and I always made a point of visiting this museum. Etched in my memory is the 1996/1997 Magritte exhibition; the catalogue is still available online. During this visit, in addition to a walk through the galleries of the permanent collection, we were pleased to see an exhibition entitled “The Other Side of the Moon”: /Women Artists of the Avant Garde. This exhibition presented the work of Sophie Tauber-Art, Sonia Delaunay, Hannah Höch, female artists who contributed substantially to shaping the avant-garde tendencies of Dada, Constructivism and Surrealism.

PHOTO: Top Three: 1.Max Ernst (1891-1976) At the First Clear Word, 1923. Oil on canvas. 2. Franz Kline (1910-1962) Untitled, 1957. Oil on canvas. 3. View of the  K20 Grabbenplatz Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Museum, the highly polished black granite reflecting the sky. This distinctive post-modern building, designed by the Danish architectural firm of Dissing+Weitling, inaugurated in 1986. Middle Three: 1. Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) Rhythm of Black Lines, 1937/1942, oil on canvas. 2. Oskar Schlemmer (1988-1943) Ornamental Sculpture on a Split Frame, 1919/1923. Limewood painted in oil on chalk ground. 3. Ellsworth Kelly (b. 1923) Green Relief with Blue, 1993. Oil on canvas, two connected panels. Bottom Two: 1. Wassilly Kandinsky (1866-1944) Composition IV, 1911. Oil tempera on canvas. 2. Henri Matisse (1869-1954) Red Interior, Still Life on Blue Table, 1947. Oil on canvas.

JOURDAN ARPELLE-ZIEGLER                                   BACK TO MAP  PAGE