When in Munich, a visit to the Pinakothek museums is a must for every art lover. The three locations that are located close to each other - the Alte Pinakothek, the Neue Pinakothek and the Pinakothek der Moderne - tell the story of art history from around seven centuries through top-class exhibits.
The most traditional building is the Alte Pinakothek. It was opened in 1836 and was considered the largest museum building in the world at that time. Today it houses over 700 works of European painting from the 14th to the 18th century. Highlights of the collection include works by Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Sandro Botticelli, and Peter Paul Rubens.
The "Neue Pinakothek" was opened in 1853. At that time, it was intended as a counterpart to the Alte Pinakothek. It shows works from Classicism, Romanticism, Art Nouveau, and Impressionism, among others by William Turner, Caspar David Friedrich, Carl Spitzweg, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, and Auguste Rodin. The original building was destroyed in the Second World War and replaced by a new building on the same site in 1981. A comprehensive refurbishment, which is scheduled to last at least five years, began in 2019.
The "Pinakothek der Moderne" is dedicated to 20th-century and contemporary art. The interdisciplinary building combines four museums featuring art, graphics, architecture, and design on more than 12,000 square metres. The "Modern Art" collection comprises over 20,000 works of painting, sculpture, photography, and new media. The spectrum ranges from artists of the "Blaue Reiter" and the "Brücke" to Pablo Picasso and René Magritte to Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Anselm Kiefer, and Georg Baselitz.
All of the originals of these works are on display at the Pinakotheken, Munich.
