Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen - Collection

Collection

The collection encompasses a singular selection of works from the 20th and 21st centuries. Among the high points are paintings by the German Expressionists, Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky and Jackson Pollock, and installations by Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik. Alongside these works, which have long since achieved iconic status, are additional outstanding examples of classical modernism, of American art after 1945, along with major installation works, photographs, and film and video pieces by contemporary artists. Critics have referred to the collection - whose individual works are notable for their outstanding quality - as a “secret National Gallery”.

The focus of the collection is classical modernism. Stylistically, the works from before 1945 range from Fauvism, Expressionism, Pittura Metafisica, and Cubism to works by members of the Blaue Reiter group, as well as Dada and Surrealism. The collection also includes 100 works by Paul Klee. In 1960, the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia earmarked 6 million German Marks for the purchase of 88 paintings, drawings, and color studies on paper by Klee - an ensemble which formed the nucleus of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen. Although the price tag seemed high at the time, it appears a rare bargain from today's perspective. The works came from a private American collection in Pittsburgh.

Among groups of works by individual artists is an ensemble of 12 by Pablo Picasso which encompasses nearly all of the major creative phases of his career. Cubism forms an important focus of the collection, with works in the style by Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Georges Braque and others.

Art after 1945 is represented primarily by circa 40 major pieces by American artists. Among these are works by Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and Jackson Pollock, whose monumental Number 32 from 1950 is one of the few mural-sized drip paintings by this artist, and is regarded as a key exemplar of Abstract Expressionism. Among the four works by Robert Rauschenberg is Wager, which dates from 1957 and is one of the largest and most complex of his "combine paintings".

European postwar art is represented among others by the works of Markus Lüpertz, Per Kirkeby, Gerhard Richter and Joseph Beuys, whose late work "Palazzo Regale", acquired in 1992, has been supplemented by a further 60 works. These were formerly owned by Düsseldorf art collector Günter Ulbricht.

Installations and artist’s rooms are an important focus of the Kunstsammlung, an area which has been expanded continuously in recent years (through works by Marcel Broodthaers, for example). German photography is represented in the collection by the works of Bernd and Hilla Becher and other exponents of the Düsseldorf School of photographers. In the realm of new media, i.e. film and video, the collection continues to expand, and presently contains around 90 works.

In 2005, the private collection of Simone and Heinz Ackermans, which contained 150 works of international contemporary art, was acquired by the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia following the display of selected works from the collection at the K21 from 2002 to 2005. The focus of the Ackermans Collection is art since the 1980s, on figurative sculpture, photographic works, installations, as well as film and video works.