Berlinische Galerie

The Berlinische Galerie was founded in 1975 as a society devoted to exhibiting art from Berlin. Its founding director was the art historian Eberhard Roters, who initiated the museum out of a perceived lack of attention to specifically Berlin art. Jörn Merkert directed the museum from 1987 to 2010, when he was succeeded by Köhler. For the first few years it was based in an office in Charlottenburg, and its exhibitions were displayed at the Akademie der Künste and the New National Gallery among others. In 1978 the Galerie moved into a former Landwehr officers' mess (now the Museum of Photography) on Jebensstraße, near Zoo Station. In 1986 it moved again, into the Martin-Gropius-Bau. In 1994 the collection became a public-law foundation.

In 1998 the Berlinische Galerie had to leave the Martin-Gropius-Bau due to reconstruction. After six years without a permanent home, it opened in its new location, in former industrial premises in Kreuzberg, in 2004. Built in 1965, the current building was originally a glass warehouse, and took the Galerie a year to renovate. The conversion of the former warehouse into a museum was designed by the architect Jörg Fricke. The hall, built near the Berlin Wall in the 1960s, had been used by the West Berlin Senate to store window glass as part of the city's emergency reserves during the Cold War. The museum reopened again in 2015 following a €6 million refurbishment that mainly involved updating the museum's security and technical equipment.

Fine Arts

The Fine Arts Collection contains around 5000 objects. Among them are works by prominent artists such as Max Beckmann, Hannah Höch, Naum Gabo, Georg Baselitz, Wolf Vostell, Ursula Sax and John Bock. Works by numerous artist groups are also represented, e.g. the Berlin Secession, Dada Berlin, the Eastern European avant-gardes, the Neue Wilde and the young art scene after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Golden Twenties form a focal point.