Wilhelm Busch Museum

The Wilhelm Busch Museum, formally known as Wilhelm Busch, Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst (Wilhelm Busch, German Museum of Caricature and Drawings), is a museum in Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937, it holds the world's largest collection of works by Wilhelm Busch, the Lower Saxon poet and draughtsman, and has developed into an internationally significant institution for satirical art, caricature, illustration, and comic art. The museum is housed in the Georgenpalais, an eighteenth-century palace in the Georgengarten, part of the Herrenhausen Gardens, and is run by the Wilhelm Busch Society, which formed in 1930.

The Wilhelm Busch Society, established in 1930, founded the museum on 13 June 1937 in the centre of Hanover, making it the first museum devoted to Wilhelm Busch. Emil Conrad, a collector, was co-founder and first director. During the National Socialist period, the museum interpreted Busch through the lens of the völkisch movement; the archivist Karl Anlauf published a work in 1939 presenting Busch as a völkisch seer. The original building was destroyed by Allied bombs in 1943, though the art collection had already been evacuated. The museum reopened in 1950 in the Georgenpalais, with an extensive presentation of Busch's works and the first caricature exhibition. In 1986, the subtitle Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und kritische Grafik was added to reflect the museum's expanded focus. Renovation and expansion began in spring 1999, and the building reopened in July 2000. Since 2000, the museum has jointly managed a café with the Palaisgarten. The city of Hanover provides the historic exhibition building free of charge and contributes annual sponsorship funding. Since 2002, the Association of Sponsors (Verein der Förderer des Wilhelm-Busch-Museums) has provided additional support. As of 2010, the Wilhelm Busch Society has approximately 2,500 members in and outside Germany. The museum also cooperates regularly with the Buchdruck-Museum in Linden-Nord, and the Hanover registry office conducts indoor and outdoor wedding ceremonies at the museum and in the Palaisgarten during summer months.

The museum's holdings centre on the world's largest collection of works by Wilhelm Busch, including oil paintings and original drawings on permanent display. Beyond Busch, the museum owns an internationally significant collection of four centuries of satirical art. The collection has grown substantially since around 2000 through major acquisitions and estate donations. These include over 700 caricatures of Napoleon, works by Austrian caricaturist Erich Sokol, and the artistic estate of writer Günter Kunert. The museum holds estates and endowments from numerous artists: Hanns Erich Köhler's estate of 4,383 works (1971); Paul Flora's endowment of 370 works (1970-1972); Volker Kriegel's estate of over 700 works (2005); Friedrich Karl Waechter's estate of around 3,400 works (2007); Ronald Searle's estate on permanent loan of around 2,200 works (2010); and Günter Kunert's artistic estate of around 700 works (2013). The Marie Marcks collection was acquired in 2014. The collection spans historical satirical prints, caricatures, cartoons, comics, and critical graphics.

The permanent collection features works by major figures in satirical and graphic art across four centuries, including William Hogarth, James Gillray, Francisco de Goya, and Honoré Daumier, as well as Thomas Theodor Heine, A. Paul Weber, Tomi Ungerer, Jean-Jacques Sempé, and Ronald Searle. The museum has presented around 150 exhibitions since 1950, featuring artists such as Carl Barks, Walt Disney, Grandville, Gottfried Helnwein, Hergé, Winsor McCay, and Roland Topor. Notable past exhibitions include Horst Janssen in 1982; Volker Kriegel in 2005/2006; a collection exhibition for the 75th museum anniversary in 2012/2014; Ralf König in 2014/2015; Marie Marcks in 2015; French caricatures from Jacques Callot to Charlie Hebdo in 2016; and posthumous exhibitions of Friedrich Karl Waechter's work. The museum's exhibition programme typically operates on a three- to four-month cycle, with many shows travelling to other museums, predominantly in the German-speaking world but also elsewhere in Europe.

The museum is located in the Georgenpalais, a palace built between 1779 and 1782 (dating from around 1780), situated in the Georgengarten, part of Hanover's Herrenhausen Gardens. The building was renovated and expanded between 1999 and 2000, reopening in July 2000. The renovation included the creation of a café in connection with the redesigned Palaisgarten. The city of Hanover owns the building and permits the museum's use without charge.

The Wilhelm Busch Museum is located in Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany, within the Georgengarten in the Herrenhausen Gardens. The museum is run by the Wilhelm Busch Society and supported by the Association of Sponsors since 2002, with the city of Hanover providing the building free of charge and an annual sponsorship contribution. The museum's website is https://karikatur-museum.de/. Visitors can access the permanent Wilhelm Busch exhibition on the upper floor, as well as rotating exhibitions of historic and contemporary caricature, satirical prints, cartoons, and comics. The museum shares a café with the Palaisgarten, established after the 2000 renovation.