Current exhibition

"The World Must Always be Seen Anew" – Painting by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

16. November 2025 to 
15. Febuary 2026
Tree branches covered with snow.

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Snow-covered Branches, 1951, Oil on Canvas,Brücke-Museum, Karl und Emy Schmidt-Rottluff Stiftung, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

1 of 5
Painting, two people in front of a dyke, signature: S-Rottluff 1910

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Deichdurchbruch, 1910, Öl auf Leinwand, Brücke-Museum, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

2 of 5
Two people are walking along a path and there is a blue crescent moon in the top right corner.

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Blue Moon, 1920, Öl auf Leinwand, Brücke-Museum, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

3 of 5
A harbour with a sailing ship in the middle.

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Fisherman's Cove, 1937 Öl auf Leinwand, Brücke-Museum, Karl und Emy Schmidt-Rottluff Stiftung, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

4 of 5
Portrait of a woman.

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Portrait R.S., 1915, Öl auf Leinwand, Brücke-Museum, Karl und Emy Schmidt-Rottluff Stiftung und Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

5 of 5
←
→

The Brücke-Museum is dedicating an extensive exhibition to its initiator, the artist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Around 70 paintings from the donations made between 1964 and 1974 and the artistic estate of the founding member of the Brücke artists’ group are on view. The museum thus houses the world’s largest collection of Schmidt-Rottluff’s art.

 

The exhibition draws on this rich collection and offers an overview of the artist’s entire oeuvre – from his Expressionist beginnings in 1905 to his monumental, colourful, and powerful late work of the 1960s. It reveals not only an impressive stylistic development but also a close connection between art and biography. The exhibition of this collection becomes a journey through the stages of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff’s life: influenced by the revolutionary spirit of the Brücke artists’ group, the years of war and his attachment to the landscapes that surrounded him, he repeatedly discovered “the world anew”.  Through the interplay of vibrant colours and deliberate simplification of form, he imbued his motifs with an emotional power that is still palpable today.

 

With this multifaceted exhibition, the Brücke-Museum not only honours Schmidt-Rottluff’s Expressionist work and his generous gift to the Federal State of Berlin in 1964 – the founding hour of the museum – but also presents research on the artist’s catalogue raisonné.

Artists

Programme

See all

Staff

Christiane Remm, Curator

Luna Weis, Assistant Curator and Project Management

Daniela Bystron, Curator of Outreach

Ximena Gutiérrez Toro, Curatorial Assistant of Outreach

Pool Practice, Exhibition Design