Bremen's Kunstverein (art association) was one of the first in Germany. Founded in 1823, it still runs the Kunsthalle art gallery with its own funds. Its priceless collection covers a period from the 14th century to the present day: European painting from the middle ages to the present day, sculptures from the 16th to 21st century and New Media.
Among the highlights of the collection are French and German works of art from the 19th and 20th century, including important pieces by French Impressionists such as Claude Monet, Edouard Manet and Paul Cézanne, along with major paintings by Lovis Corinth, Max Liebermann, Max Beckmann and Paula Modersohn-Becker.
The Department of Prints and Drawings holds 220,000 sheets, including hand drawings, aquarelles, and printed graphs of the 15th to 20th century, and is thus one of the major institutions of its kind in Europe.
The New Media section features works by John Cage, Otto Piene, Peter Campus, Olafur Eliasson, Nam June Paik and others. The Kunstverein promotes current art trends by awarding the Böttcherstrasse Art Prize and organising exhibitions of the „Förderkreis für Gegenwartskunst“ (association for the support of contemporary art).
The Kunsthalle attracted hundreds of thousands of art enthusiasts to Bremen with large-scale exhibitions such as “Van Gogh: Fields”, “Monet and Camille” or “Paula in Paris”. It would like to go on presenting projects of this size in future, and so decisive areas such as the delivery zone, security and air-conditioning technology, depots, and restoration workshops are currently being brought up to the most modern standards, and more exhibition space is being created.
During closure time more than twenty German museums, including the Pinakothek Museums in Munich, Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the Kunsthalle Hamburg, are taking the opportunity to accommodate some Honoured Guests from Bremen. To temporarily supplement their own collections, they have selected the most significant works of art from the Kunsthalle collection, which encompasses almost 2000 paintings, sculptures and media objects.
In addition different events in cooperation with other organisations and museums in Bremen take place.
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