Saarland Museum

The Saarland Museum is an art museum in Saarbrücken, the capital of the German state of Saarland. The institution is operated by the Stiftung Saarländischer Kulturbesitz and is spread across three specialized sites. These include the Old Collection, focusing on art from the 16th to the 19th centuries, the Museum in the Palace Church, which specializes in religious art from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, and the Modern Gallery, which presents art from the 19th century to the present. The museum is particularly significant for its holdings in German and French Impressionism, Expressionism, Informal Art, and its extensive works on paper and photography collections.

The museum traces its origins to 1920, with the establishment of a predecessor institution, and was further developed in 1924 with the founding of the Heimatmuseum der Stadt Saarbrücken and the Staatliches Museum Saarbrücken. In 1925, Fritz Grewenig founded the Graphic Collection as a teaching and study repository for the Staatliche Schule für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe. During the Weimar Republic, the Staatliches Museum built a significant modern art collection, but in 1937 the Nazis confiscated numerous works during the campaign against degenerate art, and many were destroyed. After World War II, director Rudolf Bornschein rebuilt the modern collection with support from the French military administration, focusing on Expressionism. His successor, Georg W. Költzsch, shaped the collection toward Informal Art, and later director Ernst-Gerhard Güse organized significant exhibitions for artists like Jean Dubuffet and Giorgio Morandi. A major expansion project for the Modern Gallery began in 2007 but became a cultural policy disaster marked by escalating costs, embezzlement, and corruption, leading to a construction halt in 2011 and the dismissal of director Ralph Melcher. The project was revived in 2013 when the architectural firm Kuehn Malvezzi took over, allowing the museum to reopen in November 2018 under director Roland Mönig. Andrea Jahn succeeded Mönig in July 2020, and Lisa Felicitas Mattheis is set to take over leadership in May 2025.

The museum's holdings encompass a broad historical range divided among its three sites. The Old Collection features 16th to 19th century European painting, including Dutch landscapes and still lifes, as well as silverware, porcelain, coins, miniatures, and furniture. The Modern Gallery covers the 19th century to the present, with an emphasis on the Franco-German avantgarde exchange from Impressionism through the 1960s. Its Graphic Collection holds around 12,500 drawings and prints, anchored by the 8,500 works from the Kohl-Weigand private collection integrated in 1980. The photography collection comprises 24,667 prints and a similar number of slides and negatives, making it one of the oldest museum photography collections in the Federal Republic. It is deeply linked to Otto Steinert and the subjective photography movement, and includes the estate of his student Monika von Boch. Contemporary holdings feature video art, performance, installation, light, and sound art from artists like Daniel Hausig, Christina Kubisch, and Ulrike Rosenbach.

The Modern Gallery holds extensive works by the Berlin Secession, including Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth, and Max Slevogt, alongside German Expressionism pieces by Brücke artists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, and Emil Nolde. It also houses major works by Max Beckmann, Bauhaus masters like Oskar Schlemmer and Lyonel Feininger, and comprehensive groups of works by Albert Weisgerber and Hans Purrmann from the Kohl-Weigand collection. Postwar Informal Art is prominently represented by Gerhard Hoehme, Emil Schumacher, and K.R.H. Sonderborg. The museum possesses a unique collection of sculptures by Alexander Archipenko. Notable individual paintings include Franz Marc's Little Blue Horse and August Macke's The Storm. The Old Collection features Johann Friedrich Dryander's historically vital painting of the burning of Saarbrücken Palace in 1793, as well as portraits of the princes of Nassau-Saarbrücken and figures of the Saarland steel industry like Carl Friedrich Stumm by Louis Krevel. The Palace Church is notable for its baroque princely graves and colorful windows by Georg Meistermann.

The museum operates across three distinct architectural sites. The Old Collection is housed in the Kreisständehaus next to Saarbrücken Palace. The Palace Church, which contains the religious art collection, was modernized in 2004 and connected to the Old Collection via a glass construction on the south side of the choir. The Modern Gallery is situated on the opposite bank of the Saar River, near the Saarland State Theatre. Its original building was designed by architect Hanns Schönecker, with construction occurring between 1965 and 1978, initially comprising three interconnected pavilions. Following the troubled expansion phase that began in 2007, the Berlin firm Kuehn Malvezzi redesigned the project, completing a fourth pavilion in 2017. A sculpture garden established in the 1960s sits south of the gallery above the Willi-Graf-Ufer, featuring monumental sculptures ranging from Aristide Maillol's Vénus sans bras from 1920 to Pae White's Torrance from 2017. The Palace Church also serves as a regular venue for musical performances by the Hochschule für Musik Saar and contemporary art exhibitions.

The Saarland Museum is located in Saarbrücken, Germany, and is administered by the Stiftung Saarländischer Kulturbesitz. The Old Collection and the Museum in the Palace Church are situated on the historic Alt-Saarbrücken side of the river at Schlossplatz 16 and Am Schlossberg 6, respectively. The Modern Gallery is located across the river at Bismarckstraße 11-15. The Old Collection is open Tuesday, Thursday through Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, with extended hours on Wednesday until 20:00. The institution actively conducts provenance research, particularly focusing on the Kohl-Weigand collection and artworks purchased from European art dealers to clarify ownership histories. The museum also hosts regular temporary exhibitions of classic and contemporary art across its pavilions.