ENTHUSIASM
DANGER
REALIZATION

The National Gallery

is a fascinating universe of art that extends across six unique museums in Berlin and offers impressive insights into artistic developments from the 19th century to our time: The magnificent ALTE NATIONAL GALLERY , inaugurated in 1876 on Museum Island, takes visitors along on a journey through the 19th century, while Mies van der Rohe's sublime NEW NATIONAL GALLERY near Potsdamer Platz presents the highlights of the 20th century up to the 1960s. The HAMBURGER BAHNHOF – NATIONAL GALLERY OF THE PRESENT – shows contemporary art in a wide-ranging manner and in tune with the times. This diversity of the three main houses is complemented by specialized exhibitions in the MUSEUM BERGGRUEN and the SCHARF-GERSTENBERG COLLECTION , which enchant with masterpieces of classical modernism and surreal art. The FRIEDRICHWERDER CHURCH, built by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, shows sculptures from the 19th century.

The realization of extraordinary exhibitions requires know-how, occasionally unconventional approaches, often money and even more passion. The FRIENDS contribute all of this.

The FRIENDS of the Nationalgalerie have been passionately committed to art since 1977. Your efforts support the Nationalgalerie Berlin, a cultural flagship with six (soon to be seven) houses, especially in times of limited public resources.

Membership fees and sponsors enable important exhibition projects that make works of art from the 19th century to the present accessible to a broad audience. FRIENDS take on important operational tasks and use entrepreneurial thinking to effectively promote art and culture. They consider patronage to be essential for social interaction.

The aim is to inspire a diverse community and strengthen the importance of the National Gallery as a vibrant, international institution. With various memberships, the FRIENDS open the doors of the National Gallery to everyone, from young art fans to companies.

All Andy Warhol Artworks © 2024 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Andy Warhol. Velvet Rage and Beauty – around 250,000 visitors!

With around 250,000 visitors, the special exhibition “Andy Warhol. Velvet Rage and Beauty” in the Neue Nationalgalerie on Sunday, October 6, 2024 ended as a huge success.
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PORTRAIT SERIES

FRIENDS

Members introduce us to their
connection to the club and to art

MAKE WHAT IS POSSIBLE
POSSIBLE

What we do

CARSTEN HOELLER.
SOMA Hamburger Bahnhof, 2010

“The friends are a speedboat. I've never heard that it can't be done or that it's better to look for something else."

Thomas Demand

Since 2000, we have been awarding the internationally renowned “National Gallery Prize” sponsored by FREUNDEN every two years.

In retrospect, the always daring list of young nominees reads like a “Who’s Who” of contemporary art, which we owe to the nominators and the always top-class juries: starting with Olafur Eliasson, Katharina Grosse, Dirk Skreber and Christian Jankowski through Monica Bonvicini , Tino Sehgal, Omar Fast, Cyprien Galliard, Anne Imhof to the current artists Pan Daijing, Dan Lie, Hanne Lippard and James Richards.

CARSTEN HOELLER.
SOMA Hamburger Bahnhof, 2010

“The Friends of the National Gallery are important because they can do something that bureaucrats cannot. When I was allowed to exhibit, it was great!”

Monica Bonvicini

We facilitate around four to six large and small exhibition projects every year for the National Gallery buildings. Over the past decades we have made over 150 exhibition wishes come true.

Recently, for example, Isa Genzken's "75 years - 75 works" in the upper hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie - or, a little longer ago, Gerhard Richter's "Panorama", "The most beautiful French come from New York", "Melancholy - genius and madness in art". ", "The MoMA in Berlin", "Andy Warhol and Picasso - the time after Guernica", to name just a few selected highlights. At the Hamburger Bahnhof the expansive exhibitions in the central hall by Katharina Grosse, Anne Imhof, Tomas Saraceno and Carsten Höller's SOMA. The audience favorites of the Alte Nationalgalerie range from international exhibition collaborations such as the currently shown “Secessions – Klimt, Stuck, Liebermann” to “Goya-Prophet of Modernism” and spectacular collection presentations such as “Impressionism-Expressionism – Art Turnaround” to monographic exhibitions of individual artists such as Rembrandt Bugatti, Anton Graff or, most recently, Caspar David Friedrich.

ANNE IMHOF.
ANGST II Hamburger Bahnhof, 2016

“Without the Friends of the National Gallery, many projects would not be possible at all. It is precisely the circles of friends who support the museums in a partnership in their independence.”

Udo Kittelmann

In addition to our focus on exhibition projects, we acquire works of art from the 19th century to the present. Over 300 works with a total value of 55 million euros have so far been added to the Nationalgalerie's collection.

To do this, we raise donations, gifts and legacies or use the interest income from our foundation, which was set up specifically for the acquisition of contemporary art. So with the foundation that we were able to establish with the sensational proceeds from the exhibition “The MoMA in Berlin” (2004, Neue Nationalgalerie) and endow it with six million euros. Our most controversial purchase was certainly the purchase of Barnett Newman's “Who is afraid of red, yellow and blue IV” in the early 1980s. The then director Dieter Honisch and the FRIENDS mobilized numerous artists against conservative currents in West Berlin politics and society in order to finally transform the initially prevailing dislike into widespread approval.

We get people excited about art and bring them close to it. Every year we organize up to 30 events exclusively for our members. By meeting artists as well as those responsible for curatorial work, we create a special form of exchange, take a look behind the scenes and make the relevance of art and culture for our society beautifully tangible.

"Beyond this extraordinary support activity for the National Gallery, beyond the economic orientation for the State Museums, one of the Friends' most exemplary achievements is their social impact - far beyond the National Gallery."

Peter Klaus Schuster