Museum Barberini Potsdam

Description

On the Alten Markt in Potsdam, the Museum Barberini presents itself as a venue for painting from the 17th century to the present, with a focus on Impressionism.

The building was erected within the reconstructed façades of the classically baroque Palais Barberini, modelled on the Palazzo Barberini in Rome. The original palace was severely damaged in an air raid in April 1945 and demolished in 1948; the site remained vacant for a long time until reconstruction was carried out as part of urban renewal. Ground was broken in August 2013. Primarily the exterior façades were reconstructed; the interior was designed according to modern principles. Across three levels 17 galleries were created, featuring high ceilings, vaulted spaces and oak parquet, and offering around 2,200 square metres of exhibition space. The building also includes an auditorium for readings, concerts, film and theatre events, and houses the Hasso Plattner Collection as well as temporary exhibitions.

The museum opened in January 2017; public operations began shortly thereafter. By May 2019 the institution had recorded more than one million visitors.

Since September 2020 a permanent exhibition of 107 works of French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism from the Hasso Plattner Collection has been on display. These include 38 paintings by Claude Monet as well as works by Gustave Caillebotte, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Signac, Alfred Sisley, Maurice de Vlaminck, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro and Henri-Edmond Cross. Monet’s Haystack from the eponymous series (1890–1891) was acquired at an auction in New York in May 2019. With 38 paintings by Monet, the museum holds the largest collection of the artist outside Paris. The presentation ranges from the 1860s to the early 20th century, connects works from several generations of artists and traces the development of French landscape painting in Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism and Fauvism through thematic focal points. Well-known works in the collection include Caillebotte’s The Bridge at Argenteuil and the Seine (c. 1883), Signac’s The Harbour at Sunset, Opus 236 (Saint-Tropez) (1892), and Monet’s The Palazzo Contarini (1908) and the Water Lilies (1914–1917). On 23 October 2022 Monet’s Haystack was attacked in a protest action involving mashed potatoes; displayed behind protective glazing, the painting remained undamaged.

Scholarly research and educational interpretation form the basis of the museum’s exhibition work. International specialists prepare content in symposia; explanatory texts in the galleries emphasise the central aspects of each presentation. An online database provides information on works, provenance, literature and exhibition history. During the COVID‑19–related closure, the museum expanded digital access to the Impressionism presentation to enable a virtual exploration of the collection.