The Lenbachhaus () is a building housing the Städtische Galerie (English: Municipal Gallery)

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership, be accessible to all, or have restrictions in place. Although ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

's ''

Kunstareal The Kunstareal (, "art district") is a museum quarter in the city centre of Munich, Germany. Area of arts It consists of the three "Pinakotheken" galleries (Alte Pinakothek, Neue Pinakothek and Pinakothek der Moderne), the Glyptothek, the Staat ...

''.

The building

The Lenbachhaus was built as a Florentine-style villa for the painter

Franz von Lenbach Franz Seraph Lenbach, after 1882, Ritter von Lenbach (13 December 1836 – 6 May 1904), was a German painter known primarily for his portraits of prominent personalities from the nobility, the arts, and industry. Because of his standing in society ...

between 1887 and 1891 by

Gabriel von Seidl Gabriel von Seidl (9 December 1848 – 27 April 1913) was a German architect and a representative of the historicist style of architecture. Early life, education and early career Gabriel Seidl was born in 1848 in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria. H ...

and was expanded 1927–1929 by Hans Grässel and again 1969–1972 by Heinrich Volbehr and Rudolf Thönnessen. Some of the rooms have kept their original design. The city of Munich acquired the building in 1924 and opened a museum there in 1929. The latest wing was closed to the public in 2009 to allow the expansion and restoration of the Lenbachhaus by

Norman Foster Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank (born 1 June 1935) is an English architect. Closely associated with the development of high-tech architecture, Lord Foster is recognised as a key figure in British modernist architecture. Hi ...

; the 1972 extension was demolished to make way for the new building. The museum reopened in May 2013. The architect placed the new main entrance on Museumsplatz in front of the

Propylaea In ancient Greek architecture, a propylaion, propylaeon or, in its Latinized form, ''propylaeum''—often used in the plural forms propylaia or propylaea (; Greek: προπύλαια)—is a monumental gateway. It serves as a partition, separat ...

. The new facade, clad in metal tubes made of an alloy of copper and aluminum, will weather with time.

The gallery

The Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus contains a variety of works by Munich painters and contemporary artists, in styles such as the Blue Rider and

New Objectivity The New Objectivity (in ) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against German Expressionism, expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle Mannheim, Kunsthalle' ...

Munich painters

Starting with late Gothic paintings, the gallery displays masterpieces by Munich artists such as

Jan Polack Jan Polack (, also spelled Hanns Polagk, Polegk; born 1435/1450 – 1519) was a 15th-century painter. From his nickname it is assumed that he might have been born and/or worked in Kraków, Poland. From the mid-1470s on, he lived and worked in M ...

Christoph Schwarz Christoph Schwartz, Schwarz, or Schovarts (c. 1545 in München – April 15, 1592) was a German court painter. Biography Houbraken remarked that he died the same year that Adrian de Bie was born. He took his information from Joachim von San ...

, Georges Desmarees (''Countess Holstein'' 1754), Wilhelm von Kobell, Georg von Dillis,

Carl Rottmann Carl Anton Joseph Rottmann (11 January 1797, in Handschuhsheim (today a part of Heidelberg) – 7 July 1850, in Munich) was a German landscape painter and the most famous member of the Rottmann family of painters. Rottmann belonged to the circ ...

(''Cosmic stormlandscape'' 1849),

Carl Spitzweg Carl Spitzweg (February 5, 1808 – September 23, 1885) was a German romantic painter, especially of genre subjects. He is considered to be one of the most important artists of the Biedermeier era. Life and career Spitzweg was born in Mun ...

(''Childhood Friends'', ), Eduard Schleich, Carl Theodor von Piloty,

Franz von Stuck Franz Ritter von Stuck (February 23, 1863 – August 30, 1928), born Franz Stuck, was a German painter, sculptor, printmaker, and architect. Stuck was best known for his paintings of ancient mythology, receiving substantial critical acclaim with ...

(''Salome'' 1906),

(''Self Portrait with His Wife and Daughters'' 1903),

Friedrich August von Kaulbach Friedrich August von Kaulbach (2 June 1850 in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria – 26 July 1920 in Ohlstadt, Germany) was a German portraitist and historical painter. Along with Franz von Lenbach and Franz von Stuck, he was known as one of the "Mal ...

Wilhelm Leibl Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl (October 23, 1844 – December 4, 1900) was a German realist painter of portraits and scenes of peasant life. Biography Leibl was born in Cologne, where his father was the director of the Cathedral choir. He was a ...

(''Veterinarian Reindl in the Arbor'' ),

Wilhelm Trübner Wilhelm Trübner (February 3, 1851 – December 21, 1917) was a German Realism (visual arts), realist Painting, painter of the circle of Wilhelm Leibl. Biography Trübner was born in Heidelberg. He was the third son of a silver- and goldsmit ...

and

Hans Thoma Hans Thoma (2 October 1839 – 7 November 1924) was a German painter. Biography Hans Thoma was born on 2 October 1839 in Bernau, Grand Duchy of Baden, in the Black Forest, Germany. He was the son of a miller and was trained in the basics of p ...

. Works by members of the

Munich Secession The Munich Secession (German language, German Münchener Secession) was an association of visual artists who broke away from the mainstream Munich Artists' Association in 1892, to promote and defend their art in the face of what they considered ...

are also on display. The group was founded in 1892, and included artists such as the

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

painters

Lovis Corinth Lovis Corinth (21 July 1858 – 17 July 1925) was a German artist and writer whose mature work as a painter and printmaker realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism. Corinth studied in Paris and Munich, joined the Berlin Secessio ...

(''Self-portrait with skeleton'' 1896),

Max Slevogt Max Slevogt (8 October 1868 – 20 September 1932) was a German Impressionist painter and illustrator, best known for his landscapes. He was, together with Lovis Corinth and Max Liebermann, one of the foremost representatives in Germany of t ...

(''Danae'' 1895) and

Fritz von Uhde Fritz von Uhde (born Friedrich Hermann Carl Uhde; 22 May 1848 – 25 February 1911) was a German Painting, painter of Genre art, genre and Religious Painting, religious subjects. His style lay in-between realism (art), Realism and Impressionism, ...

German Schools of Painting and Barbizon

In 2012, the Christoph Heilmann Foundation, the city of Munich, and the Lenbachhaus agreed to cooperate closely; in the process, around one hundred works were handed over to the Lenbachhaus. In addition to the Munich school of painting, the Dresden Romanticism and the Berlin school and the

Düsseldorf school of painting Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

are also shown in characteristic individual examples; the first portrayal of

Barbizon Barbizon () is a commune (town) in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. It is located near the Fontainebleau Forest. Demographics The inhabitants are called ''Barbizonais''. Art history The Barbizon school of painters is n ...

's painters in France is particularly important. The Lenbachhaus now has got a major work by

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( ; ; ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the ...

, who first appeared in 1851 in an exhibition in Munich next to paintings of

Théodore Rousseau Étienne Pierre Théodore Rousseau (; 15 April 181222 December 1867) was a French painter of the Barbizon school. Life Youth He was born in Paris, France in a bourgeois family. At first he received a basic level of training, but soon displa ...

The Blue Rider

The Lenbachhaus is most famous for the worldwide largest collection of paintings by

Der Blaue Reiter ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (''The Blue Rider'') was a group of artists and a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name ...

(The Blue Rider), a group of

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

artists established in Munich in 1911 which included, among others, the painters

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

(''Impression III (Concert)'' 1911),

Gabriele Münter Gabriele Münter (19 February 1877 – 19 May 1962) was a German expressionist painter who was at the forefront of the Munich avant-garde in the early 20th century. She studied and lived with the painter Wassily Kandinsky and was a founding mem ...

(''Still Life with St. George'' 1911),

Franz Marc Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc (8 February 1880 – 4 March 1916) was a German painter and printmaking, printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider), a journal whose ...

(''Blue Horse I'' 1911),

August Macke August Robert Ludwig Macke (3 January 1887 – 26 September 1914) was a German Expressionist painter. He was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). He lived during a particularly activ ...

(''Promenade'' 1913),

Marianne von Werefkin Marianne von Werefkin (born Marianna Vladimirovna Veryovkina; , ; – 6 February 1938) was a Russian artist, whose work is celebrated as a central part of German Expressionism. Life and career In Russia 1860–1896 Werefkin was born to ...

(''Self Portrait I'' ),

Alexej von Jawlensky Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky (; 13 March 1864 – 15 March 1941), surname also spelt as Yavlensky, was a Russian expressionist painter active in Germany. He was a key member of the New Munich Artist's Association ( Neue Künstlervereinigung ...

(''Portrait of the Dancer Alexander Sacharoff'' 1909),

Alfred Kubin Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin (10 April 1877 – 20 August 1959) was an Austrian artist, printmaker, illustrator, and occasional writer. Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism and Expressionism. Biography Kubin was born i ...

(''The Male Sphinx'' ), and

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

(''Föhn Wind in Franz Marc's Garden'' 1915). Münter donated 1,000 “Blue Rider” works to the museum on her 80th birthday.

New Objectivity

Artists of the

Christian Schad Christian Schad (21 August 189425 February 1982) was a German painter and photographer. He was associated with the Dada and the New Objectivity movements. Considered as a group, Schad's portraits form an extraordinary record of life in Vienna an ...

(''Operation'' 1929) and

Rudolf Schlichter Rudolf Schlichter (or Rudolph Schlichter) (December 6, 1890 – May 3, 1955) was a German painter, engraver and writer. He was one of the most important representatives of the critical-realistic style of verism within the New Objectivity movement ...

(''

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

'' ) are exhibited in several rooms.

Contemporary art

The museum displays a broad view of international contemporary art with works by

Franz Ackermann Franz Ackermann (born 1963 in Neumarkt-Sankt Veit, Bavaria) is a German painter and installation artist based in Berlin. He makes cartoonish Abstract art, abstraction. Life He attended the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, Akademie der Bildenden K ...

, Dennis Adams,

Christian Boltanski Christian Liberté Boltanski (6 September 1944 – 14 July 2021) was a French sculptor, photographer, painter, and film maker. He is best known for his photography installations and contemporary French conceptual style. Early life Boltanski wa ...

Monica Bonvicini Monica Bonvicini (born 1965 in Venice) is a German-Italian artist who works with installation, sculpture, video, photography and drawing mediums to explore the relationships between architecture and space, power, gender and sexuality. She is co ...

, James Coleman,

Thomas Demand Thomas Cyrill Demand (born 1964) is a German sculptor and photographer. He currently lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg. He makes photographs of three-dimensional models that look like ...

Olafur Eliasson Olafur Eliasson (; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scaled installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's experience. In 1995, ...

Valie Export Valie Export (often stylized as 'VALIE EXPORT'; born 17 May 1940) is an avant-garde Austrian artist. She is best known for provocative public performances and expanded cinema work. Her artistic work also includes video installations, computer a ...

Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures. Early life and career Daniel Nicholas Flavi ...

, Günther Förg, Günter Fruhtrunk,

Rupprecht Geiger Rupprecht Geiger (26 January 1908 – 6 December 2009) was a German abstract painter and sculptor. Throughout his career, he favored monochromicity and color-field paintings. For a time, he concentrated solely on the color red. Life and work ...

Isa Genzken Isa Genzken (born 27 November 1948) is a German artist who lives and works in Berlin. Her primary media are sculpture and installation, using a wide variety of materials, including concrete, plaster, wood and textile. She also works with photograp ...

Liam Gillick Liam Gillick (born 1964) is a British artist. In the 1990s he was one of the informal Young British Artists group; like many of them, he took a degree in fine art from Goldsmiths' College, in London. He was among the artists included in the ...

Katharina Grosse Katharina Grosse (born 2 October 1961) is a German visual artist. She is known for her large-scale, site-related installations to create immersive visual experiences. Grosse's work employs a use of architecture, sculpture and painting. She has be ...

Michael Heizer Michael Heizer (born 1944) is an American land artist specializing in large-scale and site-specific sculptures. Working largely outside the confines of the traditional art spaces of galleries and museums, Heizer has redefined sculpture in term ...

, Andy Hope 1930 (Andreas Hofer),

Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. Her work focuses on the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, projectio ...

Stefan Huber Stefan Huber (born 14 June 1966) is a Swiss former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. Club career Huber played his youth football by local club FC Unterstrass. He then moved to Grasshoppe ...

Asger Jorn Asger Oluf Jorn (3 March 1914 – 1 May 1973) was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International. The largest collection of Jorn's works� ...

Ellsworth Kelly Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, col ...

Anselm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan h ...

, Michaela Melian, Gerhard Merz,

Maurizio Nannucci Maurizio Nannucci (born 1939, in Florence, Italy) is an Italian contemporary artist. Lives and works in Florence and South Baden, Germany. Nannucci's work includes: photography, video, neon installations, sound installation, artist's books, and edi ...

Roman Opałka Roman Opałka (Polish: ; 27 August 1931 – 6 August 2011) was a French-born Polish painter, whose works are mostly associated with conceptual art. Opałka was born on 27 August 1939 in Abbeville-Saint-Lucien, France, to Polish parents. The ...

Sigmar Polke Sigmar Polke (13 February 1941 – 10 June 2010) was a German painter and photographer. Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matters and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s, ...

Arnulf Rainer Arnulf Rainer (born 8 December 1929) is an Austrian painter noted for his abstract informal art. Rainer was born in Baden, Austria. During his early years, Rainer was influenced by Surrealism. In 1950, he founded the ''Hundsgruppe'' (''dog gr ...

Gerhard Richter Gerhard Richter (; born 9 February 1932) is a German visual artist. Richter has produced Abstract art, abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, photographs and Glass art, glass pieces. He is widely regarded as one of the most important con ...

, Michael Sailstorfer,

Richard Serra Richard Serra (November 2, 1938 – March 26, 2024) was an American artist known for his large-scale Abstract art, abstract sculptures made for Site-specific art, site-specific landscape, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings, a ...

Katharina Sieverding Katharina Sieverding (born 16 November 1941) is a German photographer known for her self-portraiture. Sieverding lives and works in Berlin and Düsseldorf. She is a professor emeritus at the University of the Arts, Berlin. Early life and educati ...

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 March 6, 1986) was an American Modernism, modernist painter and drafter, draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades and whose work remained largely independent of major art movements. Called the "M ...

Lawrence Weiner Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942December 2, 2021) was an artist born and raised in New York City. One of the central figures in the formation of Conceptual Art in the 1960s, Lawrence Weiner explored the potentials of language as a scu ...

and Martin Wöhrl, as well as artists of the

Viennese Actionism Viennese Actionism was a short-lived art movement in the late 20th-century that spanned the 1960s into the 1970s. It is regarded as part of the independent efforts made during the 1960s to develop the issues of performance art, Fluxus, happening, a ...

. Art installations were added with the opening of the new building, such as a sculpture from

. The Lenbachhaus has considerably strengthened its investment by acquiring numerous works of art, especially in the oeuvre of

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( ; ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and Aesthetics, art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism and sociology. With Heinrich Böll, , Caroline Tisdall, Rober ...

, such as ''Zeige deine Wunde'' (''Show your wound'') 1974/75. Young artists are promoted in exhibitions in the affiliated Kunstbau, above the Königsplatz Subway Station. Stephanie Weber curated a solo show of Mark Boulos and a film series of Charles Simonds and Christoph Schlingensief, while commissioning performances by Tom Thayer and

C. Spencer Yeh Burning Star Core is the experimental music project of violinist C. Spencer Yeh. Originally conceived 1993 in Cincinnati, the project is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Composing music that's driven by his violin, Yeh's Burning Star Core p ...

and adding to the collection works by Vito Acconci,

and Martha Rosler, and has worked on a retrospective of Polish-born feminist artist Lea Lublin that opened in summer 2015. On 26 July 2017 a legal battle over a Paul Klee painting titled ''Swamp Legend'' (1919), seized by Nazis as "degenerate" art in the 1930s, reached a settlement:

Gallery

File:Macke, August - Promenade - Google Art Project.jpg, August Macke, ''Promenade'' File:Macke, August - Türkisches Café - Google Art Project.jpg, August Macke, ''Türkisches Café'' File:Marc, Franz - Blue Horse I - Google Art Project.jpg, Franz Marc, ''Blue Horse'' File:Marc, Franz - Deer in a Monastery Garden - Google Art Project.jpg, Franz Marc, ''Deer in a Monastery Garden'' File:Marc, Franz - The Tiger - Google Art Project.jpg, Franz Marc, ''The Tiger''

Provenance Research

The Lenbachhaus systematically checks the provenance of artworks created before 1945 that entered the collection after 1933. In addition to the examination of the museum's own collection holdings, preliminary reviews of possible new acquisitions, and acceptance of permanent loans or endowments also take place. The Lenbachhaus is one of several German museums that are researching the art collector Carl Heumann (1886–1945), who after building in the 1920s and 1930s an important collection of prints of German and Austrian art of the 18th and 19th centuries, was persecuted because of his Jewish origins under the National Socialist regime. The Lenbachhaus approached Carl Heumann's descendants in order to find a just and fair solution regarding the artworks from his collection. In 2017 the heirs of Robert Gotschalk Lewenstein and his sister Wilhelmine Helena Lewenstein sued for the restitution of a “Colorful Life,” by Wassily Kandinsky. The same year, a long running lawsuit concerning Paul Klee's Swamp Legend was settled with the heirs of

Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers (1891–1978), born Sophie Schneider, was a German art historian, patron of the avant-garde, author, and art collector. Biography Küppers, née Schneider, was born in Kiel, Germany in 1891, the daughter of Christian and ...

References

External links

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Lenbachhaus
within

Google Arts & Culture Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform of high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world, operated by Google. It utilizes high-re ...

{{Authority control Modern art museums in Germany Buildings and structures in Munich Historicist architecture in Munich Art museums and galleries in Munich Maxvorstadt