Neue Pinakothek

A gallery of the long nineteenth century, the Neue Pinakothek holds Munich's collection of European art from the late Enlightenment to the dawn of modernism. It forms the middle link in the Kunstareal museum quarter, between the Alte Pinakothek and the Pinakothek der Moderne, and traces its origins to King Ludwig I of Bavaria.

Ludwig founded the collection in 1853 to gather contemporary art, and the present building opened in 1981 to a design by Alexander von Branca after the original nineteenth-century house was destroyed in the war. The low, sandstone structure wraps around interior courtyards and pools, its galleries lit largely from above and arranged as a gentle circuit through the century.

The holdings are exceptionally rich. They include German Romantics such as Caspar David Friedrich, English landscapes by Turner and Gainsborough, Goya, the Nazarenes and the Biedermeier, and a strong run of French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism with Manet, Monet, Degas, Cézanne and Gauguin. A celebrated group of van Gogh works, including a version of the Sunflowers, is among the most admired pieces, alongside German painters like Menzel, Spitzweg and the Symbolists.

The building has been closed for a major structural renovation since 2019, with reopening planned only after extensive works, so a selection of highlights has been shown in nearby galleries including the Alte Pinakothek and the Sammlung Schack in the interim. Visitors planning around the collection should confirm where the works are currently on view. When open, the museum pairs naturally with its neighbours for a full day in the Kunstareal, a compact district that gathers many of Bavaria's finest art institutions within a few walkable blocks.