Von der Heydt-Museum

Name: Wednesday guided tour: Clara Rilke-Westhoff and Renée Sintenis - two sculptors write art history
Start: 2026-09-30
End: 2026-09-30

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Current exhibitions (3)

Schön & Strict The power of the ornament

2026-10-11 – 2027-02-14

With the exhibition "Beautiful & Strict. The Power of Ornament", the Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal explores the function and significance of ornament in art from classical modernism to the present day. It is dedicated to a topic that is particularly topical. In view of the vast quantities of images produced at breakneck speed by electronic media, many people are looking for formal strategies that promise clarity and stability in geometric and ornamental arrangements. The internationally renowned painting collection of the Von der Heydt-Museum in particular provides the ideal basis for an exhibition on the "Power of the Ornament", as it illustrates with numerous major works how painters from Henri Matisse and August Macke have made color, form and surface the actual pictorial theme since the beginning of modernism. Even in today's art, repetitions, patterns and repeats do not fulfil a decorative function, but are - recognizable in works by artists such as Philip Taaffe, Katja Davar or Thomas Bayrle - an expression of the desire to coherently combine the simple and the complex. At the same time, supposedly purely decorative forms also pose questions that are critical of the times and society, as every ornament has its own history and, as a result, its own meaning. For example, when artists such as Nevin Aladağ, Azra Akzamija or Susan Hefuna draw on traditional ornaments from certain cultures, patterns can also be read as socio-critical messages. The exhibition is initially based on the sensual pleasure and joy of pure contemplation. It is about traditional ornaments as well as individually designed pictorial patterns that correspond to today's perception of color and form. On the one hand, the interest is directed towards the formal rigor, regularity and seriality inherent in ornament, as well as the aspect of playfulness. The selected works thus reflect the artistic approaches that led to abstract or concrete art in the first half of the 20th century, and later to Op Art, and are experiencing a revival today. In today's global culture, however, the migration of forms and the representational and communicative functions of patterns and ornaments in the context of merging cultures is a particularly exciting topic.

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Times and rooms

2026-09-25 – 2027-05-31

The Von der Heydt Museum's unique collection, with its pronounced focus on the 19th century and classical modernism, is being presented for the first time in many years in a permanent exhibition and in a new form. The newly conceived presentation of the collection brings together selected paintings and sculptures from the 17th century to the 1960s - many of which are firm favorites with the public. The grouping of the works is special: under the title "Times and Spaces", they are arranged like a kind of visual travel guide that leads through the formative spaces and periods of European art history of the last centuries: for example, to the Netherlands and Flanders, to the art metropolises of Paris and Berlin or to the inconspicuous little town of Worpswede, which nevertheless provided significant impulses. The exhibition will therefore not so much build up a chronology in the classical sense, but above all show artistic networks. Works by Ludwig Richter, Gustave Courbet, Hans von Marées, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Otto Dix, Hans Arp and Alberto Giacometti will be on display. With over 2,000 paintings, 500 sculptures, 800 photographs and 30,000 graphic works, the Von der Heydt Museum has one of the most important art collections in Germany. Its systematic development began in the early years of the 20th century and continues to this day. With the exhibition "Times and Spaces - Classics of the Collection", the museum invites visitors to rediscover its high-caliber and internationally renowned holdings through a precise selection. At the same time, it marks Wuppertal as a cultural location of distinction in North Rhine-Westphalia in a sustainable way. Anselm Kiefer's work "Anselm fuit hic" (2015-2023), which belongs to the artist's latest group of works, has been part of this exhibition since October 2024. The Von der Heydt Museum has the Renate and Eberhard Robke Foundation to thank for this spectacular new addition. It is the first work by this internationally renowned German artist in the Von der Heydt Museum's collection. In the collection presentation "Times and Spaces", Kiefer's painting fits in between the landscape paintings of the 17th and 19th centuries, between artistic positions from the Netherlands and Germany. On the one hand, it shows the tradition in which the monumental painting stands and how it continues this tradition. On the other hand, it offers an opportunity to take a fresh look at this very tradition and the history or stories with which it is associated.

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Museum A to Z

2026-09-25 – 2027-12-31

What constitutes a museum, and what should it be like in the future? What tasks does a museum have, and what wishes do we have for the museum as an institution and for the Von der Heydt Museum in particular? The exhibition "Museum A to Z: From the beginning to the future" provides unusual and unfamiliar insights into the history and diversity of the collection on the one hand and looks to the future on the other. In addition to the classic tasks of collecting, preserving, researching, exhibiting and communicating, the role of museums is increasingly being shaped by current issues such as diversity, digitalization, decolonization and participation. "Museum A to Z" takes you from the beginning to the future: from the founding phase of the museum to topics such as local and global collecting, colonial contexts, provenance research and restitution, to possible perspectives for further development. The presentation thus complements the newly conceived permanent exhibition "Times and Spaces. Classics of the Collection" and, for the first time, highlights the surprising diversity of the Von der Heydt Museum's historically evolved holdings, including little-known areas such as the decorative arts and non-European objects. On display, for example, are textiles from present-day Indonesia and non-European sculptures, which are juxtaposed with Wuppertal views by Adolf Erbslöh, Carl Grossberg, Erich Heckel, Oskar Schlemmer and Marie Luise Oertel, among others. The diversity of objects is conveyed via an organizational structure that stands outside purely content-based categories: paintings by Ottilie W. Roederstein, Emmy Klinker or Paula Modersohn-Becker, for example, show the diversity of genres in painting, while craft objects make the variety of materials and techniques tangible. Provenance research is another important focus of the exhibition: Its significance is explained with a focus on the painting "Portrait of Felix Benjamin" by Max Liebermann, which was restituted to the heirs of Felix Benjamin, who was persecuted and murdered by the National Socialists, in 2023 and subsequently reacquired. A central point of the exhibition is the barrier-free mediation both in the museum and in the digital space: for the first time, a tactile model of Max Pechstein's painting "The Artist's Son on the Sofa" will make it easier for blind and visually impaired people to find their way to art and will be supplemented by a specially developed guided tour program. Museum A to Z" will be accompanied by a diverse program of educational activities and events. Against the backdrop of the Von der Heydt Museum's upcoming 125th anniversary in 2027, the exhibition invites visitors to discuss its current and future tasks and to formulate their wishes.

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