A house for centuries of art: the Lindenau-Museum Altenburg combines Italian masterpieces of panel painting, German modernism and lively art education - a place where history and the present meet in a unique way.
The Lindenau-Museum Altenburg is one of the most extraordinary art museums in Germany. It houses one of the most important collections of early Italian panel paintings from the 13th to 16th centuries, which is unparalleled worldwide. These works are thanks to the collector, scholar and patron Bernhard August von Lindenau (1779-1854), who made them accessible to the public from 1848.
The magnificent neo-Renaissance building, which was built in 1876 especially for this collection, also houses extensive holdings of German, French and Dutch paintings from the 16th to the 21st century. There is a particular focus on the graphic holdings of the 1920s and classical modernism: the collection includes one of the largest collections of illustrated portfolios of late expressionism and New Objectivity. The museum also houses the world's largest collection of works by the artist Gerhard Altenbourg (1926-1989).
View of the permanent exhibition © Photo: Lutz Ebhardt
The facility includes the "studio" workshop, an art and art education center for children, young people and adults that is still active today - in the spirit of the drawing and art school founded by Lindenau. The museum has also been listed in the so-called "Blue Book" since 2001 as one of the 23 nationally significant cultural institutions in eastern Germany.
A visit to the Lindenau-Museum Altenburg is a journey through art history - from ancient ceramics to contemporary art - and a place where viewing becomes a dialog: with the work, the time and the visitor himself.
