The Hamburger Kunsthalle was founded by citizens of Hamburg and is today the largest museum in the Hanseatic city and one of the most important art museums in Europe. Initiated by collectors and art lovers, Hamburg's first museum grew out of several private collections and was fed from the outset by civic donations.
With the founding of the Kunstverein in 1817, the first art institution in the Hanseatic city supported by women from Hamburg was established, whose members persistently worked towards the founding of an art museum. In 1863, the two donations by Georg Ernst Harzen and Johann Matthias Commeter formed the basis of the Kunsthalle collection, the founding of which was linked to the demand to build an exhibition building for it. It was mainly donations from citizens that made Hamburg's first museum building possible on the former Vincent bastion, the Alsterhöhe, which was opened in August 1869. The second Kunsthalle building was constructed between 1912 and 1919, and the last part of the building, the Galerie der Gegenwart, opened in February 1997.
Hamburger Kunsthalle, exhibition "Impressionism - German-French Encounters" © Fred Dott
The three striking buildings of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, located between the Inner and Outer Alster lakes, are now home to one of the most important public art collections in Germany. They comprise around 145,000 works of art from the 14th century onwards, of which around 1,000 works are on permanent display. In addition, there are around 6,000 coins, medals and small sculptures, which have been recorded, researched and digitized with funds from the Dorit and Alexander Otto Foundation since 2022 in order to be shown in a new collection presentation from 2026. With more than 140,000 drawings and prints, the Kunsthalle's Kupferstichkabinett is one of the most important in Germany, and its historical study room is still the place where works from the Kabinett can be presented - as well as holdings from the Art Library and the Historical Archive. A special constellation that is currently being taken into account in the planned structural expansion of this area.
