Significant acquisitions for all six houses, supported by around 1,500 members, patrons and our foundation for the acquisition of contemporary art.
The FRIENDS acquire works of art from the 19th century to the present. To date, over 300 works have been added to the National Gallery'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 endow with six million euros from the proceeds of the exhibition “The MoMA in Berlin” (2004, Neue Nationalgalerie).
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.
