The Hamburger Kunsthalle is one of the most important museums in the city of Hamburg and in Germany. Founded in 1868, the Hamburger Kunsthalle preserves an extensive artistic collection, from medieval times to contemporary art, with particular attention to the 19th century period. The museum is located in the center of the Hanseatic city, between the central station and the Astler river and consists of three buildings separated from each other architecturally: the Altbau (old building, oldest seat of the museum), the Neubau (new building, former extension of the museum, built at the beginning of the twentieth century) and the Galerie der Gegenwart (Gallery of contemporary art, inaugurated in 2012). The Hamburger Kunsthalle collection focuses in particular on German and Northern European painting. Particularly noteworthy are the medieval altars of Master Bertram, the Dutch painting of the seventeenth century, the German painting of the nineteenth century, with a large group of works by Caspar David Friedrich, including the famous Wanderer on the Sea of Fog. There are also works by Philipp Otto Runge, Adolph Menzel and Max Liebermann and modern classic with works by Max Beckmann, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Edvard Munch and Paul Klee, as well as contemporary art by Bruce Nauman, Gerhard Richter, Rosemarie Trockel and Sigmar Polke. The Hamburger Kunsthalle also has an important Cabinet of drawings and prints, with over 130,000 works in the collection. Furthermore, the museum is very active in organizing important temporary exhibitions.
