The National Gallery () in Berlin, Germany, is a museum for art of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. It is part of the

Berlin State Museums The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums) are a group of institutions in Berlin, Germany, comprising seventeen museums in five clusters; several research institutes; libraries; and supporting facilities. They are overseen by the ...

. From the

Alte Nationalgalerie The Alte Nationalgalerie ( ''Old National Gallery'') is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin, Germany. The gallery was built from 1862 to 1876 by the order of King Frederick William IV of Prussia according to ...

, which was built for it and opened in 1876, its exhibition space has expanded to include five other locations. The museums are part of the

, owned by the

Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (; SPK) is a German federal government body that oversees 27 museums and cultural organizations in and around Berlin, Germany. Its purview includes all of Berlin's State Museums, the Berlin State Librar ...

Locations

The holdings of the National Gallery are currently shown in five locations: *

: 19th-century art, on

Museum Island The Museum Island (, ) is a museum complex on the northern part of Spree (river), Spree Island in the Mitte (locality), historic heart of Berlin, Germany. It is one of the capital's most visited sights and one of the most important museum sites ...

Neue Nationalgalerie The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its sculpt ...

: 20th-century art, at the

Kulturforum The Kulturforum () is a collection of cultural buildings in Berlin. It was built up in the 1950s and 1960s at the edge of West Berlin, south of the Tiergarten, after most of the once unified city's cultural assets had been lost behind the Ber ...

. The building, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, opened on 15 September 1968. * Berggruen Museum: in

Charlottenburg Charlottenburg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a German town law, town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Kingdom ...

, showing classics of 20th-century modern art collected by Heinz Berggruen; added to the National Gallery in 1996. * Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection: in Charlottenburg, showing 20th-century art from French

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

; added to the National Gallery in 2008. *

Hamburger Bahnhof Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart is the former Train station#Terminus, terminus of the Berlin–Hamburg Railway in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstrasse in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as ...

: ''Museum für Gegenwart'', contemporary art; added to the National Gallery in 1996. *

Friedrichswerder Church Friedrichswerder Church (, ) was the first Neo-Gothic church built in Berlin, Germany. It was designed by an architect better known for his Neoclassical architecture, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and was built under his direction from 1824 to 1831 ...

: 19th-century sculpture, a church designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, opened as an annexe of the National Gallery in September 1987. From 2012 to 2020 the building was closed owing to structural damage.

History

Planning, foundation and construction of the original building

There was long discussion of the desirability of establishing a national gallery in Berlin, particularly during the period of revolutionary nationalism around 1848, and it became an increasingly serious proposition from 1850, when publications appeared advocating it. From the start it was bound up with the ambitions of

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

and the wish for Berlin to become a capital of world renown. The decision was finally taken in 1861, after the death of the banker and art patron

Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener (16 July 1782 in Berlin – 18 January 1861 in Berlin) was a German banker and patron of the arts. His collection formed the initial nucleus of the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Life and work