The Museum Ostwall (known as Museum am Ostwall until 2010) is a museum of modern and

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

Dortmund Dortmund (; ; ) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the List of cities in Germany by population, ninth-largest city in Germany. With a population of 614,495 inhabitants, it is the largest city ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It was founded in the late 1940s, and has been located in the Dortmund U-Tower since 2010. The collection includes

paintings Painting is a visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or " support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush. Other implements, ...

sculptures Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

, objects and

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. The process and pra ...

from the 20th century, plus over 2,500

graphics Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of the data, as in design and manufa ...

, spanning

Expressionism 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 ...

through classic modern art to the present day.

History

The museum's original location, from 1947 until 2009, was a building on the Ostwall (a road in central Dortmund following the old city walls), including a small sculpture garden. The previous building on the site had been the '' Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte'' (MKK), a municipal art collection, from 1911 until its destruction in World War II; before 1911 it housed the old Westphalia Mining Authority.Die Geschichte des Museums Ostwall im Dortmunder U - ehemals Museum am Ostwall
History of the museum. A gradual rebuilding, using construction materials from the ruins of the MKK, began in the late 1940s. The first exhibition at the Museum am Ostwall was held in 1949 – making it one of Germany's first post-war museums of 20th-century art – and it continued to be expanded until 1956. The MKK, meanwhile, was provisionally rehomed in Cappenberg Castle until its return to Dortmund in 1983. In June 2009 the original building closed its doors, and the museum began relocating into the U-Tower, where it reopened under the new, shortened name Museum Ostwall in October 2010. The seven-storey tower, a former Dortmund Union brewery and warehouse, played a key role in the

Ruhr Area The Ruhr ( ; , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr Area, sometimes Ruhr District, Ruhr Region, or Ruhr Valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 1,160/km2 and a populati ...

's rebranding as "Culture Capital of Europe 2010" ('' RUHR.2010 – Kulturhauptstadt Europas''). The museum reopened with the special exhibition "The Museum as Power Station" (''Das Museum als Kraftwerk'').

Collection

The collection was initially compiled from works that the Nazis had classified as " degenerate art". The ''Gröppel Collection'', containing around 200 paintings, sculptures and graphics, was acquired in 1957 and is now one of the keystones of the museum.Die Sammlung des Museums Ostwall
The collection. At the heart of the collection are works by

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German Expressionism, expressionist Painting, painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expr ...

, Otto Mueller, Emil Nolde and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, who founded the movement ''

Die Brücke Die Brücke (The Bridge), also known as Künstlergruppe Brücke or KG Brücke, was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905. The founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt-R ...

'' in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

in 1905. The avant-garde '' Blaue Reiter'' group, started in 1912, is represented here by the works of

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 ...

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 ...

, August Macke and Alexej von Jawlensky. The collection of Jawlensky is the second-largest in Germany, after that of the

Museum Wiesbaden The Museum Wiesbaden is a two-branch museum of Art museum, art and Natural history museum, natural history in the Hesse, Hessian capital of Wiesbaden, Germany. It is one of the three Hessian State museums, in addition to the museums in Hessian ...

. The museum also owns 26 graphics by

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

from the 1940s and '50s, plus others by

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , ; ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan Spanish painter, sculptor and Ceramic art, ceramist. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...

and

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, ...

. The collection includes a single work each by

Otto Dix Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and Printmaking, printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Alon ...

, Lyonel Feininger,

Alberto Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, Drafter, draftsman and Printmaking, printmaker, who was one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century. His work was particularly influenced ...

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 ...

, Oskar Kokoschka and Oskar Schlemmer. Among the

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

s, the highlight is Christian Rohlfs. In the early 1990s the museum acquired over 1,000 works from the collection of the artist Siegfried Cremer, by artists including

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

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 ...

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a South Korean artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super highway" ...

, Wolf Vostell,

Günther Uecker Günther Uecker (; 13 March 1930 – 10 June 2025) was a German painter, sculptor, op artist, and installation artist. He became known primarily for his nail reliefs. In 1961, Uecker joined the Zero (art), ZERO group. Early life and education ...

and

Jean Tinguely Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century.Chilvers, Ian; Gl ...

, strengthening the museum's coverage of the

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

, ZERO and "informal art" movements.

Activities

1962 saw the opening of a children's painting studio, one of the first such teaching projects in a museum. The "Youth Art Club" (''Jugendkunstclub'') gives youngsters the chance to visit exhibitions, meet artists, and produce their own works in the museum's studio. During the school holidays it also offers art workshops. Educational projects will continue in the new location. The exhibition is changed twice a year, in order to present as many works as possible to the public. The museum's old rooms provided a venue for touring concerts and matinees. The museum also publishes art books and catalogues, partly funded by the non-profit society "Friends of the Museum am Ostwall".Freunde des Museums am Ostwall
Friends of the Museum.

Notes

External links

{{Authority control Modern art museums in Germany Art museums and galleries in Germany Museums in Dortmund Museums established in 1952