Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection is an art museum in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. Its collection of paintings, graphics and sculptures, spanning the period from French Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

to Surrealism

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

, is currently housed in former rooms of the Egyptian Museum

Egyptian Museum of Berlin

The Egyptian Museum of Berlin is home to one of the world's most important collections of Ancient Egyptian artifacts.The collection is part of the Neues Museum.-History:...

in Charlottenburg

Charlottenburg

Charlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, named after Queen consort Sophia Charlotte...

on a ten-year loan. It was founded in 2008, and is part of the National Gallery of Berlin.

The foundation

The works on display are owned by the Foundation of the Dieter Scharf Collection in Remembrance of Otto Gerstenberg. Gerstenberg was an early 20th century Berlin art collector, whose collection was partly destroyed and partly seized as plunder

Looting

Looting —also referred to as sacking, plundering, despoiling, despoliation, and pillaging—is the indiscriminate taking of goods by force as part of a military or political victory, or during a catastrophe, such as during war, natural disaster, or rioting...

(ending up in Russian museums) during the war. The surviving artworks remained in family ownership and were inherited by his grandson, Dieter Scharf. This collection of graphics was to be the foundation of Scharf's own acquisitions, and in 2000 Scharf's collection was put on display in Berlin under the name "Surreal Worlds". Shortly before his death in 2001 he transferred these works to the new Foundation. There is currently a ten-year loan agreement between this foundation and the Berlin State Museums

Berlin State Museums

The Berlin State Museums, in German Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, are a group of museums in Berlin, Germany overseen by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and funded by the German federal government in collaboration with Germany's federal states...

, while the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation

Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation , headquartered in Berlin, Germany, is one of the largest cultural institutions in the world. It was founded by a West German federal law passed on 25 July 1957, with the mission to acquire and protect the cultural legacy of the former state of Prussia...

has allowed it the use of the East Stüler Building in Charlottenburg.

The building

The Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection is located on Schloßstraße, opposite the present-day Berggruen Museum

Berggruen Museum

The Berggruen Museum is a collection of modern art classics in Berlin, which the collector and dealer Heinz Berggruen, in a "gesture of reconciliation", gave to his native city for a price well below its actual value. The most notable artists on display include Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti,...

(in the West Stüler Building). Both buildings are separated from Charlottenburg Palace

Charlottenburg Palace

Charlottenburg Palace is the largest palace in Berlin, Germany, and the only royal residency in the city dating back to the time of the Hohenzollern family. It is located in the Charlottenburg district of the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf burough.The palace was built at the end of the 17th century...

by the Spandau Dam. They originate from designs by the Prussian king Frederick William IV, implemented by the architect Friedrich August Stüler

Friedrich August Stüler

Friedrich August Stüler was an influential Prussian architect and builder. His masterwork is the Neues Museum in Berlin, as well as the dome of the triumphal arch of the main portal of the Berliner Stadtschloss.-Life:...

from 1851-59. Both the Stüler Buildings originally served as officer barracks for the Gardes du Corps regiment. The East Building is part of the old Marstall Building (constructed 1855-58 by Wilhelm Drewitz), and together these two housed the Egyptian Museum between 1967 and 2005. From 2005-08 they were renovated for future use by the Scharf-Gerstenberg Museum, under the architectural direction of Gregor Sunder-Plassmann.

The collection

The works inherited by Dieter Scharf from his grandfather's collection include graphics by Goya, Hugo

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....

, Klinger

Max Klinger

Max Klinger was a German Symbolist painter, sculptor, printmaker, and writer.Klinger was born in Leipzig and studied in Karlsruhe. An admirer of the etchings of Menzel and Goya, he shortly became a skilled and imaginative engraver in his own right. He began creating sculptures in the early 1880s...

, Manet

Édouard Manet

Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....

, Meryon

Charles Méryon

Charles Méryon , was a French artist, who worked almost entirely in etching, as he suffered from colour-blindness. Although now little-known in the English-speaking world, he is generally recognised as the most significant etcher of 19th century France. He also suffered from mental illness, dying...

and Piranesi

Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Giovanni Battista Piranesi was an Italian artist famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric "prisons" .-His Life:...

. The works by these artists formed the foundation on which Scharf built his own collection of symbolist

Symbolism (arts)

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...

and surrealist

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

art.

Besides paintings by Dalí

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

, Dubuffet

Jean Dubuffet

Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...

, Ernst

Max Ernst

Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...

, Magritte

René Magritte

René François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...

, Masson

André Masson

André-Aimé-René Masson was a French artist.-Biography:Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but was brought up in Belgium. He began his study of art at the age of eleven in Brussels, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of Constant Montald, and later he studied in Paris...

, Moreau

Gustave Moreau

Gustave Moreau was a French Symbolist painter whose main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. As a painter of literary ideas, Moreau appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolist writers and artists.- Biography :Moreau was born in Paris. His father, Louis Jean Marie...

, Redon

Odilon Redon

Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.-Life:...

, Rousseau

Henri Rousseau

Henri Julien Félix Rousseau was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier , a humorous description of his occupation as a toll collector...

and Tanguy

Yves Tanguy

Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy , known as Yves Tanguy, was a French surrealist painter.-Biography:Tanguy was born in Paris, France, the son of a retired navy captain. His parents were both of Breton origin...

, as well as sculptures by Ernst, Laurens

Henri Laurens

Henri Laurens was a French sculptor and illustrator.-Early life and education:Born in Paris, Henri Laurens worked as a stonemason before he became a sculptor...

, Lipchitz

Jacques Lipchitz

Jacques Lipchitz was a Cubist sculptor.Jacques Lipchitz was born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz, son of a building contractor in Druskininkai, Lithuania, then within the Russian Empire...

and Tàpies

Antoni Tàpies

Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tàpies is a Catalan painter. He is one of the most famous European artists of his generation. After studying law for 3 years, he devoted himself from 1943 onwards only to his painting...

, the key works of the collection are graphics, following the example set by Gerstenberg. Other artists in the collection include Baumeister

Willi Baumeister

Willi Baumeister was a German painter, scenic designer, art professor, and typographer.-Life:Willi Baumeister, born in Stuttgart in 1889, completed an apprenticeship as a decorative painter in his native city from 1905 to 1907, followed by military service...

, Bellmer

Hans Bellmer

Hans Bellmer was a German artist, best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist photographer.-Biography:...

, Brauner

Victor Brauner

Victor Brauner was a Romanian Jewish painter of surrealistic images.-Early life:He was born in Piatra Neamţ, the son of a timber manufacturer who subsequently settled in Vienna with his family for a few years. It is there that young Victor attended elementary school...

, Éluard

Paul Éluard

Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...

, Ensor

James Ensor

James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Flemish-Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life...

, Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...

, Grosz

George Grosz

Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...

, Janssen

Horst Janssen

Horst Janssen was a German printmaker and draftsman.- Early life and education :He was born in Hamburg. His mother, Martha Janssen, was a dressmaker from Oldenburg; he never knew his father. Janssen was brought up in Oldenburg by his mother and grandparents in Lerchenstraße fourteen...

, Klee

Paul Klee

Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...

, Léger

Fernand Léger

Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...

, Miró

Joan Miró

Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...

, Munch

Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...

, Oelze

Richard Oelze

Richard Oelze was a German painter. He is classified as a surrealist.-Life:...

, Picabia

Francis Picabia

Francis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...

, Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

, Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...

, Seurat, Tobey

Mark Tobey

Mark George Tobey was an American abstract expressionist painter, born in Centerville, Wisconsin. Widely recognized throughout the United States and Europe, Tobey is the most noted among the "mystical painters of the Northwest." Senior in age and experience, Tobey had a strong influence on the...

, and Wols

Wols

Wols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze , a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France....

.

The Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection thematically complements the exhibition "Picasso and His Time" in the Berggruen Museum

Berggruen Museum

located opposite. Some artists, such as Picasso, Klee and Giacometti, are featured in both collections. The Kalabsha Gate

Temple of Kalabsha

The Temple of Kalabsha is an Ancient Egyptian temple that was originally located at Bab al-Kalabsha , approximately 50 kilometers south of Aswan. The temple was situated on the west bank of the Nile River, in Nubia, and was originally built around 30 BC during the early Roman era...

and the columns from the ancient Sahure

Sahure

- Etymology :Sahure's birth name means "He who is Close to Re". His Horus name was Nebkhau.- Biography :Sahure was a son of queen Neferhetepes, as shown in scenes from the causeway of Sahure's pyramid complex in Abusir. His father was Userkaf. Sahure's consort was queen Neferetnebty. Reliefs show...

Temple, both owned by the Egyptian Museum, will also be on display in the Scharf-Gerstenberg Museum until the completion of the Pergamon Museum

Pergamon Museum

The Pergamon Museum is situated on the Museum Island in Berlin. The site was designed by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann and was constructed in twenty years, from 1910 to 1930. The Pergamon houses original-sized, reconstructed monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate...

's fourth exhibition wing.

External links

Home page on the Berlin State Museums website

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The foundation

The building

The collection

Further reading

External links