Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
stables, has been revamped successfully and at great expense to house the
Sammlung
Scharf-Gerstenberg
(Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection), the personal collection of Otto
Gerstenberg, who made his fortune in the insurance industry of the early twentieth
century and “liked looking at pictures”, in the words of his grandson Dieter Scharf.
Scharf expanded the collection (which was prodigious despite extensive losses in the
war and its ransacking by Russians looking for war booty) and put it at Berlin's
disposal. he collection suggests Gerstenberg had a penchant for the graphic arts and
sculpture, particularly from the French Romantic and Surrealist schools; certainly the
pictures Gerstenberg liked to look at tended to be unusual.
On show are the massive structures by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, some odd
island-like forms by Victor Hugo and a woman copulating with a beast in Henri
Rousseau's
Beauty and Beast
- who apparently uses the depiction to play with notions
of the active and the passive. Other oddities include Max Klinger's local roller-skating
works, which were based on his dreams, and works from Wolfgang Paalen, who
painted with candle soot, and Jean Dubuffet who used coal, cement and butterfly
wings. You'll also see impressive pieces by Max Ernst, René Magritte, Salvador Dalí
and Paul Klee, who contributed a bit of orderly Bauhaus structure - many more of his
works can be enjoyed over the road at the Museum Berggruen (see p.156). Perhaps
strangest of all, maybe because they seem to fit in, is the presence of two ancient
Egyptian gems: the Kalabsha Gate from around 20 BC and the Pillar of the Sahuré
temple from around 2000 BC. Both are guests here until they're united with their
peers in the new wing of the Pergamon museum (see p.57).
10
Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
Schlossstr. 69 • Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm • Free •
W
villa-oppenheim-berlin.de • U-Richard-Wagner-Platz or bus #M45 from
Bahnhof Zoo
Next door
to the Scharf-Gerstenberg collection, and completely
overshadowed by its
neighbour, is the
Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
. hough nothing special, this
district museum can be worth ducking into for a quick look at a few evocative photos
of Weimar and wartime Charlottenburg, and the occasional interesting temporary
exhibition on the neighbourhood.
Museum Berggruen
Schlossstr. 1 • Tues-Sun 10am-6pm • €10 including Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg, audio-guide included; a €12 Bereichskarte also
includes the Museum fur Fotografie (see p.109) •
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smb.museum • U-Richard-Wagner-Platz or bus #M45 from Bahnhof Zoo
he wonderful
Museum Berggruen
houses the collection of Heinz Berggruen, a young
Jew forced to flee Berlin in 1936, who wound up as an art dealer in Paris - where he
got to know Picasso and his circle - and assembled a collection of personal favourites.
In 1996 Berlin gave him this building to show off his revered compilation in a
comfortable and uncrowded setting. Most of the dozen or so Picassos have rarely been
seen - highlights include the richly textured Cubist
he Yellow Sweater
and large-scale
Reclining Nude
- and there are also a handful of Cézannes and Giacomettis and a pair
of van Goghs. he top floor is very strong on Paul Klee, with works spanning the
interwar period.
Bröhan-Museum
Schlossstr. 1a • Tues-Sun 10am-6pm • €6 •
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broehan-museum.de • U-Richard-Wagner-Platz or bus #M45 from Bahnhof Zoo
Just south of the Berggruen Collection, the compact and enjoyable
Bröhan-Museum
houses a fine collection of Art Deco and Jugendstil ceramics and furniture. heir
assembly was the passion of Karl Bröhan (1921-2000), who donated all the pieces
he had amassed to the city to commemorate his sixtieth birthday. Each of the period
rooms is dedicated to a particular designer and hung with contemporaneous paintings
- the best of which are the pastels of Willy Jaeckel and the resolutely modern works of
Jean Lambert-Rucki.
