The art museum Mülheim at Ruhr has been located in the listed building of the former main post office since 1994 and is currently being renovated. After the renovation is expected to be completed this fall, the museum collection will be on display again!
"Power of color and experiments in form, expressive drama and rational calculation, cosmic and earthlyvisions await you in the opening exhibition", this is how the opening exhibition Brücke, Bauhaus, Blauer Reiter enticesyou. it is a special concern for us to draw the attention of our customers, art and culture lovers as well as residents of our region on to the longed-for reopening of the Mülheim Art Museum. In this sense, we would of course also like to draw your attention to on the history of the collection!
The Art Museum Mülheim, the Ziegler Collection and Themel
The history of the museum began in 1909 with the private collection of Robert Rheinen, a citizen of Mülheim. With the purchase of his collection, the city laid the foundation for of today's art museum. Rheinen was a researcher and collector by passion, and so the impulse for developed the foundation from a civic initiative with the first 1277 exhibits.
"It was founded at a time when Mülheim was beginning to develop as an industrial site into a prosperous major city"
Dr. Beate Reese. - Director
In 1981, the top-class collection of the Ziegler couple was given to the museum. 30 years, the Ziegler couple acquired this works to create a quite wonderful compilation that uniquely strengthens the Museum's on collection and significant accents. Expressionism and Classical Modernism is the highlight of an impressive collection, including works by Max Beckmann, Lyonel Feininger, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Erich Heckel , Emil Nolde, Franz Marc and August Macke.
The intimate cabinets of the old building provide visitors with insights into the artistic creative processes of artist.
Karl Ziegler (1898-1973), an honorary citizen of Mülheim, was a chemist and Nobel Prize winner. He came from Helsa in Hesse and arrived in 1943 in Mülheim at Ruhr , where he headed the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for coal research (Max-Planck Institute) until 1969. The love of nature, as well as places to which the Ziegler couple was closely associated, are reflected in this collection.
Karl and Maria Ziegler have her love of Expressionism and her special eye on can manifest the works in her collection, which can be admired again after the museum reopens. If If you would like to know more about the Ziegler Collection, we recommend the collection catalog published by the Foundation, which was published by Hirmer Verlag Munich in 2014.
In addition, we would also like to draw your attention on to the Zille collection of the physician Karl Gotthelf Themel, which is also located in the Mülheim Art Museum. In the course of his collecting activities, Themel has become a designated experts for the art of Heinrich Zille. In the reopened museum, Zille will be honored with his own cabinet.
Otto Pankok, Werner Gilles, Heinrich Siepmann
In the following decades, the museum has developed into an institution that presents works from Mülheimer artist*innen how Otto Pankok, Werner Gilles or Heinrich Siepmann to world-renowned artists how Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall .
The director of the art museum, Dr. Beate Reese, studied at the Ruhr-University Bochum with Max Imdahl, one of the best-known German art historians, who clearly helped shape the understanding of modern art. After helping to establish the Museum im Kulturspeicher in Würzburg, she took over the management of the Mülheim art museum and anchored it in the city and region in 2009. In doing so, she not only strives to enrich exhibitions with her curatorial expertise, but has also been an advisor to our auction house since 2022.
We are looking forward on the reopening of the museum and especially to visit the changing exhibitions! We hope to inspire you in this sense as a visitor, sponsor and of the art museum Mülheim . Because the art- and cultural landscape of our city certainly deserves attention!
Further information
If you would like to know more about the art museum Mülheim at Ruhr and the art collection Ziegler, we recommend the following pages.
