Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
throughout the last century. The spectacular four-storey interior centres on a vast eye-like
dome, which spreads soft natural light throughout blanched white galleries.
The museum unites four significant collections under a single roof. The
State Gallery
of Modern Art
has some exemplary modern classics by Picasso, Klee, Dalí, Kandinsky
and many lesser-known works that will be new to many visitors. More recent big shots in-
clude Georg Baselitz, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Dan Flavin and the late enfant terrible
Joseph Beuys.
In a world obsessed by retro style, the
New Collection
is the busiest section of the mu-
seum. Housed in the basement it focuses on applied design from the industrial revolution
via art nouveau and Bauhaus to today. VW Beetles, Eames chairs and early Apple Macs
stand alongside more obscure interwar items that wouldn't be out of place in a Kraftwerk
video. There's lots of 1960s furniture, the latest spool tape recorders and an exhibition of
the weirdest jewellery you'll ever see.
The
State Graphics Collection
boasts 400,000 pieces of art on paper, including draw-
ings, prints and engravings by such craftsmen as Leonardo da Vinci and Paul Cézanne.
Because of the light-sensitive nature of these works, only a tiny fraction of the collection
is shown at any given time.
Finally, there's the
Architecture Museum
, with entire studios of drawings, blueprints,
photographs and models by such top practitioners as baroque architect Balthasar Neu-
mann, Bauhaus maven Le Corbusier and 1920s expressionist Erich Mendelsohn.
Neue Pinakothek
(
www.pinakothek.de
;
Barer Strasse 29; adult/child €7/5, Sun €1; 10am-6pm Thu-Mon,
to 8pm Wed; Pinakotheken, Pinakotheken)
Picking up where the Alte Pinakothek
leaves off, the Neue Pinakothek harbours a respected collection of 19th- and early
20-century paintings and sculpture, from rococo to Jugendstil (art nouveau). Its imposing
original structure by Friedrich von Gärtner was destroyed during WWII and not rebuilt;
since 1981 works are housed in a modernist structure by Alexander von Branca.
All the world-famous household names get wall space here, including crowd- pleasing
French impressionists such as Monet, Cézanne and Degas as well as Van Gogh, whose
bold pigmented
Sunflowers
(1888) radiates cheer. There are also several works by
Gauguin, including
Breton Peasant Women
(1894); and by Manet, including
Breakfast in
the Studio
(1869). Turner gets a look-in with his dramatically sublime
Ostende
(1844).
Perhaps the most memorable canvases, though, are by Romantic painter Caspar David
Friedrich, who specialised in emotionally charged, brooding landscapes such as
Riesenge-
birge Landscape with Rising Mist
.
ART MUSEUM
