Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud

In the location's words:

Stop: City Hall, Heumarkt

The original name of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum sounds pompous: In 1827 it was still called "Wallrafanium" - named after its founder, Franz Wallraf from Cologne. Since the end of the 18th century, he had been concerned with rescuing medieval art that had been stolen or destroyed in the course of secularization. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum is known far beyond the borders of Cologne. No wonder, since it is one of the great classical painting galleries in Germany. Spread over three floors, visitors:inside can drift through the Middle Ages, Baroque, German Romanticism, French Realism and Impressionism.

"Sensation of Seeing. The Werner Nekes Collection: Vol. 2 Impressionism."

Film director Werner Nekes (1944-2017) created a fascinating media collection. It consists of some 25,000 objects, ranging from shadow puppets to cinematographs. "The history of image creation," as he himself called it, Nekes found so fascinating that in 30 years he amassed the world's largest collection on the history of media over the past 400 years. The specially built Wunderkammer stands with selected exhibits of image production in the midst of (post-) impressionist masterpieces by Gauguin, Morisot, Monet or van Gogh.

"Encounters - Käthe Kollwitz as a Guest at the Wallraf".

One of the most famous German artists is a guest at the Wallraf this fall: as part of an intervention, Käthe Kollwitz meets paintings by her idols and patrons Max Klinger and Max Liebermann with three selected works. On view are two little-known oil studies from the artist's student days and an etching created in the context of the legendary Weber cycle. In direct juxtaposition to paintings by her two contemporaries, Käthe Kollwitz's multifaceted talent becomes visible.

"Collector's Dreams: Stellar Hours of Dutch Baroque Art."

The exhibition presents for the first time the high-caliber Baroque paintings and drawings from a German private collection that the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum recently received on permanent loan. In the window room of its Baroque department, the museum opens the doors to a dreamlike collector's cabinet. On display there are paintings by stars who shone brightly in the Dutch art sky in the 17th century: Jan Brueghel the Elder, Jacob van Ruisdael, Willem Kalf and Gerrit Dou, to name a few.