The Scharf Collection opens for its first large-scale exhibit in Berlin

The Scharf Collection, 1 of Germany’s astir important backstage creation holdings, is opening its doors for its first awesome nationalist accumulation successful Berlin.

The collection, which was built complete 4 generations, will characteristic 150 useful from Goya to Grosse spanning 200 years of European and modern art.

Shown for nan first clip astatine Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie from October 2025 to February 2026, nan grounds will showcase nan improvement of European creation from nan early 19th period to today.

Visitors will spot prints by Francisco de Goya, Romantic and Realist paintings by Delacroix and Courbet, and Impressionist masterpieces by Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, and Degas.

The show will besides see Post-Impressionists for illustration Bonnard and Matisse, past move into Cubism pinch Picasso and Léger, and extremity pinch bold modern and modern useful by artists specified arsenic Sam Francis, Jasper Johns, and Katharina Grosse.

This accumulation is important because it marks nan first clip nan nationalist tin position specified a ample portion of this historically rich | and visually divers backstage collection.

Until now, only a fewer visitors per twelvemonth had entree to individual useful successful backstage settings, and galore pieces person ne'er been displayed together. So nan show not only honours nan family’s legacy, which began pinch Otto Gerstenberg complete a period ago, but besides connects past and coming done a thoughtful timeline of influential artworks.

So what tin visitors expect from specified an iconic show?

The accumulation takes them connected a travel done 200 years of art, opening pinch early 19th-century etchings by Spain’s Francisco de Goya, pinch his melodramatic bid The Disasters of War and La Tauromaquia.

From there, nan show moves into nan bosom of French Romanticism and Realism, featuring useful by Eugène Delacroix and portrayals of mundane life by Gustave Courbet. There are besides useful from Honoré Daumier, expressive caricatures and sculpted busts of lawmakers, from 19th period France.

The accumulation besides has a very breathtaking Impressionist section, pinch cardinal useful by Claude Monet, including early realist scenes for illustration Farmyard successful Chailly and later Impressionist landscapes for illustration Steep Cliffs adjacent Dieppe and a moody Waterloo Bridge.

There are besides beautiful useful by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne, showing nan changing light, colour, and activity that defined nan period. And Edgar Degas is good represented pinch his classical studies of dancers and bathers, while nan colourful, lukewarm paintings of Pierre Bonnard connection scenes of Paris and backstage home life, including Place Clichy and The Large Bathtub.

Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, who helped reshape creation done Cubism, will beryllium included successful nan Post-Impressionist and Modernist sections, arsenic good arsenic Fernand Léger, whose paintings mixed Cubist building pinch vibrant colours and machine-like forms.

Toulouse-Lautrec is different standout, pinch a rich | action of his posters and lithographs showing nan performers and nightlife of 1890s Paris. His Elles series, showing quiet moments successful nan lives of activity workers, will connection a look down nan scenes of nan Belle Époque.

The accumulation finishes pinch immoderate absurd and modern art, pinch paintings by American artists for illustration Sam Francis and Jasper Johns bring beardown colour and texture, while German creator Katharina Grosse’s massive, sprayed-on canvas fills nan abstraction pinch pinks and blues. Her activity forms a ocular echo of Monet’s, tying nan past to nan present.