Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen - History

History

The history of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen begins in 1960 with the purchase of 88 works by Paul Klee from the collection of Pittsburgh steel manufacturer G. David Thompson. The purchase - brokered by Basel art dealer Ernst Beyeler and overseen by then state premiere Franz Meyer - forms the nucleus of the collection, founded in 1961 under the title "Stiftung Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen". Between 1962 and his retirement in 1990, Werner Schmalenbach served as the first director of the newly-founded collection. He assembled an extraordinarily high-quality collection of classical modernist artworks, thereby creating the only regional collection in Germany specializing in modern art. To begin with, the collection was housed in Jägerhof Palace. Soon after it opened, space limitations prompted plans for a new building. Announced in 1975 was a competition for its design; the winning proposal was submitted by the Danish architectural office of Dissing+Weitling. The building – which resides within architectural history at the transition from postwar modernism to postmodernism - was inaugurated on 14 March 1986 in the presence of the then German President Richard von Weizsäcker, and has served ever since as an emblem of the city. With its curved façade of polished, natural black stone, the building gives Grabbeplatz its special character. It sits on the square directly across from the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, whose building also serves as the headquarters of the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen.

In 1990, Schmalenbach was succeeded as Director by Armin Zweite, formerly head of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich. While Schmalenbach had expanded the museum's holdings for the most part through the addition of masterworks of painting, it was primarily contemporary sculptures, installations, and photographs of international rank which entered the collection beginning in 1990 through the efforts of his successor. On 1 September 2009, Marion Ackermann - former director of the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart - assumed artistic directorship of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen. She has taken a dynamic approach to the collection, and seeks to relate contemporary art and classic modern to one another more closely. Together with Hagen Lippe-Weißenfeld, who joined the team on 1 November 2008 as Director of Finance and Business Affairs, Ackermann serves on the Chairmanship of the Foundation.

On 12 November 2009, the Kunstsammlung inaugurated the former home of the Galerie Schmela, located at Mutter-Ey-Straße 3 in Düsseldorf-Altstadt, as a venue for exhibitions, discussions and other activities.

After remaining closed for more than two years during comprehensive renovations and the erection of an extension building, the K20 at Grabbeplatz resumed operations as an exhibition venue in July 2010. Available now for the collection and for temporary exhibitions is a generous surface area. The first artists to exhibit there were Belgian illustrator Kris Martin and German sculptor Michael Sailstorfer, who created accessible installations for the two galleries of the new building, namely the Klee Halle and the Konrad und Gabriele Henkel Galerie, which together offer almost 2.000 m².

During the first two weeks after the reopening alone, nearly 60,000 visitors took advantage of free admission to the Kunstsammlung. The museum welcomed its 100,000th visitor on 21 October 2010. Contributing to the new and more emphatic public presence of the Kunstsammlung - which is now able to display the art collections of this federal state more comprehensively than ever before - is the large-scale mosaic mural "Hornet", composed of colorful tiles and the work of American artist Sarah Morris. With its length of 27 meters, it has become attractive landmark on the newly created Paul Klee Platz along the rear façade of the K20.

• Logo Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen

• Hornet by Sarah Morris, 2010, Paul-Klee-Platz, K20 Grabbeplatz

• Reopening of the Kunstsammlung, 2010, K20 Grabbeplatz

• Your natural yellow daylight by Olafur Eliasson, 2010, K20 Grabbeplatz

Featured on a regular basis in the venues of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen alongside presentations of the permanent collection are internationally acclaimed temporary exhibitions.

On view from 11 September 2010 to 16 January 2011 in the K20 and the Schmela Haus was the ambitious Joseph Beuys exhibition "Parallelprozesse/Parallel Processes", organized around large-scale installation works dating from all creative periods of this artist. This exhibition - the first special presentation mounted after the reopening of the Kunstsammlung am Grabbeplatz - formed part of the program of the Düsseldorf Quadriennale, and was seen by 103,000 visitors.