For Free - Berlin - page 88

Strollers pass by street art by JR
JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES ©
Major Art Museums
Berlin's most famous art museums are administered by the Staatliche Museen Berlin (Berlin
State Museums; www.smb.museu m). Masterpieces are showcased by period in five loca-
tions:
Alte Nationalgalerie Neoclassical, romantic, impressionist and early modernist art, in-
cluding Caspar David Friedrich, Adolf Menzel and Monet; on Museumsinsel.
Neue Nationalgalerie Early-20th-century art, especially German expressionists such as
Grosz and Kirchner, as well as Max Beckmann; part of the Kulturforum (note: set to close
for renovation in 2015).
Museum Berggruen Classical Modernist, mostly Picasso and Klee; near Schloss Charlot-
tenburg.
Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg Surrealist art by Goya, Magritte, Jean Dubuffet, Max
Ernst and more; near Schloss Charlottenburg.
Hamburger Bahnhof International contemporary art, Warhol to Rauschenberg to Beuys;
east of the Hauptbahnhof.
Aside from these heavy hitters, Berlin teems with smaller museums specialising in a par-
ticular artist or genre. You can admire the colourful canvasses of artist group Die Brücke in
a lovely museum on the eastern edge of the Grunewald forest; see the paintings of Max
Liebermann while standing in the very studio in the Liebermann-Villa am Wannsee where
he painted them; or take a survey of a century of Berlin-made art in the Berlinische Galerie .
Two museums train the spotlight on women: the Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum , which is ded-
icated to one of the finest and most outspoken early-20th-century German artists, and the
Das Verborgene Museum , which champions lesser-known German female artists from the
same period.
There are also corporate collections like the Kunsthalle Deutsche Bank and private ones
like the Sammlung Boros .