Städtisches Museum Mönchengladbach – the municipal museum later known as Museum Abteiberg – first became a contemporary art museum on December 9, 1922: a day that saw the ceremonious presentation of 97 pieces of Expressionist art that art historian Dr. Walter Kaesbach (1879–1961) had donated to his native city. The gift put the city on a par with other centers of the avantgarde. All that came to an abrupt end in 1937: National Socialists confiscated the collection, which they deemed “degenerate art.”
Museum Abteiberg has been researching the origins of its collection for many years. The majority of its now comparatively small collection of classical Modernist works was acquired in the late 1950s and 1960s. Documentation of paintings, sculptures, drawings and print works acquired after the Second World War is often incomplete. In 2016, with funding from the German Lost Art Foundation in Magdeburg, the museum began a systematic investigation of the “biographies” of post-war acquisitions in particular to ensure that Nazi-looted cultural property has not found its way into the collection.
PUBLIC GUIDED TOURS (in German language)
August 13, 11:30 a.m.
100 YEARS WALTER KAESBACH DONATION
EXPRESSIONISM AT THE MUSEUM ABTEIBERG
Guided tour with Ulrike Engelke
Anmeldung
September 10, 11:30 a.m.
100 YEARS WALTER KAESBACH DONATION
EXPRESSIONISM AT THE MUSEUM ABTEIBERG
Guided tour with Ulrike Engelke
Anmeldung
October 8, 11:30 a.m.
100 YEARS WALTER KAESBACH DONATION
EXPRESSIONISM AT THE MUSEUM ABTEIBERG
Guided tour with Ulrike Engelke
Anmeldung
November 12, 11:30 a.m.
100 YEARS WALTER KAESBACH DONATION
EXPRESSIONISM AT THE MUSEUM ABTEIBERG
Guided tour with Ulrike Engelke
Anmeldung
December 10, 11:30 a.m.
100 YEARS WALTER KAESBACH DONATION
EXPRESSIONISM AT THE MUSEUM ABTEIBERG
Guided tour with Ulrike Engelke
Anmeldung
PRIVATE GUIDED TOUR
100 YEARS WALTER KAESBACH DONATION
EXPRESSIONISM AT THE MUSEUM ABTEIBERG
Duration: 90 minutes
Fee: 70 EUR (German language), 90 EUR (English language) plus museum entrance fee
Arrangement of individual appointment: robert@museum-abteiberg.de
