Berlin is always changing. The city’s art scene constantly reinvents itself, too. Narrating this eventful history from the dawn of Modernism around 1900 into the 1980s is the theme of our permanent exhibition “Art in Berlin 1880 1980”.
With fresh vigour and diversity since the revamp in October 2020, the collection at the Berlinische Galerie occupies more than 1000 square metres. Waiting to be discovered among the roughly 250 works on show are paintings, prints, photographs, architecture and archive materials rarely or never displayed before.
Walking around this exhibition is like time travel through Berlin: the Kaiser’s era, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi dictatorship, the new beginnings after 1945, Cold War in the divided city, and the counter-cultures and unconventional lifestyles that evolved in East and West under the shadow of the Wall. In East Berlin, an alternative art community developed from the late 1970s. In West Berlin from the late 1970s, aggressive art by the “Neue Wilden” placed the divided city back in the international limelight.

Richard Ziegler, Knabe im Sandkasten, 1926
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020New in the permanent exhibition
In 1913/14 Lovis Corinth (1858–1925) created a spectacular 11-part cycle of wall paintings for the wealthy Berlin entrepreneur Ludwig Katzenellenbogen and his first wife Estella. Six of these are now in the Berlinische Galerie. The comic-like, monumental canvases have not been shown for many years, but now they add a striking highlight to the hall around the stairway. They were made for the dining room of a manor house (no longer standing) at Freienhagen near Oranienburg. Corinth was closely involved in Berlin’s venture into modern art. From 1900 he championed the cause of the Berlin Secession, where he regularly exhibited. By inviting international artists to their shows, the Secessionists also publicised the full spectrum of Modernist styles: Naturalism, Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Impressionism and Pointillism, all of which are represented in the permanent exhibition.
In March 1912 Herwarth Walden (1878–1941) opened his gallery “Der Sturm” in Berlin. For a decade and a half it was to be a leading forum for modern art. Its very name, “the storm”, conveys the energy and pace with which its founder brought the European avantgarde to Berlin. Walden’s interests centred initially on fairly unknown young Expressionists, Futurists and Cubists. In the 1920s, with his strong feel for new visual forms, he showed the Hungarian Constructivists and the Russian Ivan Puni (1892–1956) and gave a forum to Merz artist Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948). He was tireless and pugnacious on behalf of “his” artists and so “Der Sturm” came to epitomise progressive art in general. The history of this avant-garde gallery is told through numerous artworks along with original documents from our Artists’ Archives.
For a long time, these works, which are among the most precious in our collection, were out on the road. Now the anti-art of the Dadaists is on show at home again. The Dada movement began as a political reaction by artists to the First World War. Its key protagonists were Hannah Höch (1889–1978), Raoul Hausmann (1886–1971), George Grosz (1893–1959) and Johannes Baader (1875–1955). Through their works the Dadaists vented radical opposition to German nationalism and militarism. Dada devised new forms of artistic expression with an instructive component. The provocations and shock tactis – were intended to make society think about itself.
From the early 1920s, a loose-knit group of artists in Germany began responding to life’s often harsh realities. Their style soon became known as New Objectivity. Its proponents were not united by any kind of manifesto. They simply took their cue from the visible world, casting aside both Expressionism with its formal disarray and Dada with its anti-bourgeois stance. These portraits from the 1920s illustrate a wide range of personal styles. People and objects tend to appear cool, sober and isolated within the setting.
Ruth Hildegard Geyer-Raack (1894–1975) was an interior designer, muralist and textile designer whose reputation in the Weimar Republic extended well beyond Berlin. She specialised in high-quality, up-market interior design. With sober elegance, she harmoniously blended modern furnishing styles as antithetical as Bauhaus and art déco. Drawing on the museum’s own holdings, the permanent exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie will, for the first time, display an original fabric produced at the “Vereinigte Werkstätten”, together with 12 selected fabric and wallpaper patterns and 15 photographs of client interiors.
The photographs taken in Russia by Herbert Tobias (1924–1982) are among the most notable war pictures to emerge from the Second World War. In 1943 he was deployed to the Soviet Union to fight as a German soldier on the Eastern Front. At the age of 19, Tobias was already a talented amateur photographer. Like many soldiers he took his camera to war, but the metaphorical quality and symbolic content of his pictures offer far more than the usual souvenir snapshot. These empathetic images not only expose the brutality of the campaign, which left an indelible mark on Tobias’s world view. There are also noticeable signs of his homosexuality, well before he came out.
Among the single-family houses designed for the city from the 1950s onwards there were some stylish detached homes, especially in the Western sectors. Their architects drew consciously on the modernist aesthetic of the 1920s. Styles ranged from organic architecture with its free-flowing, irregular forms in the manner of Hans Scharoun (1893–1972) to a revival of Bauhaus ideals founded on functionality and clarity. Floor plans and versatile references to the outdoor space were tailored to the needs of the occupants. Every house acquired its own distinctive character.
From the late 1970s East Berlin was the most important base for the alternative art community in the GDR. Young artists in particular rejected the concept of social realism, which was ideologically framed. Instead they created their own counter-positions, undermining its claims to offer a faithful depiction of everyday life under socialism. More and more young photographers insisted on a subjective perception of the world and called for an uncompromising gaze on life in the GDR. In the 1980s, the exhibitions organised in galleries, clubs and culture centres, although small, were extremely significant for the photography scene in the GDR. We are showing works by Ulrich Wüst (*1949) and Maria Sewcz (*1960).
- Heroes, Knights, Monsters. Lovis Corinth: The Katzenellenbogen Cycle
- Conservatives and Modernists. Art around 1900
- Embracing Modernism. Berlin Art around 1900
- Robert Petschow and the New Vision
- Der Sturm. A Forum for the Avant-Garde, 1912–1929
- Upheaval and a Fresh Start. Avant-Garde Movements in Berlin, 1910–1933
- Dada in Berlin. Radical Art from 1918
- Berlin as a Hub Between East and West. Constructivism and the New Vision in the 1920s
- Faces of the City. New Objectivity in the 1920s
- Metropolitan Berlin. New Objectivity in the 1920s
- Berlin in the Nazi Era. Art between 1933 and 1945
- Isolation. Artists During Nazi Rule between 1933 and 1945
- A City in Ruins. Berlin after 1945
- Abstraction as the “Language of Freedom”. Art around 1950
- Individual and Functional. Detached Houses in Berlin from 1950
- In the Shadow of the Wall. Painting from the 1960s to the 1980s
- The Young Generation. Photography in 1980s East Germany
Selection of artists
Otto
Dix
1891 - 1969
Naum
Gabo
1890 - 1977
Jacoba van
Heemskerck
1876 - 1923
Werner
Heldt
1904 - 1954
Hannah
Höch
1889 - 1978
Max
Liebermann
1847 - 1935
El
Lissitzky
1890 - 1941
Jeanne
Mammen
1890 - 1976
Ludwig
Meidner
1884 - 1966
Felix
Nussbaum
1904 - 1944
Georgij
Petrussow
1903 - 1971
Anton
von Werner
1843 - 1915
Heinrich
Zille
1858 - 1929
Hans
Uhlmann
1900 - 1975
Sasha
Stone
1895 - 1940
Henry
Ries
1917 - 2004
Our Permanent Exhibition online
Discover works in our Collection OnlineAccesible permanent exhibition
Tactile models of selected works and an inclusive audio guide enable visitors to use all their senses as they explore the Presentation from Our Collection. The guide contains audio descriptions to give the blind and visually impaired a closer idea of the original works. The audio pointers – in combination with our tactile floor guidance system – facilitate independent navigation around the exhibition. This offers our blind and visually impaired visitors interactive, barrier-free access to the Berlinische Galerie collection.
Please note: We have removed the tactile models for now to meet the current hygiene requirements. Furthermore we are currently not lending out audio guide devices. You can take the audio tour through our permanent exhibition by downloading our app onto your smartphone or tablet. Thank you for your understanding!
![[Translate to English:] Berlinische Galerie-Museum-Berlin-Barrierefreiheit-Tastmodell Photo: Visitor sitting on a seat with a white cane touching a tactile model in the exhibition room.](/assets/_processed_/8/3/csm_Museum-Berlin_Barrierefrei_Tastmodell_31_41ddc7a3c5.jpg)
Next dates
Press release
Art in Berlin 1880 – 1980
Permanent Exhibition