Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

The museum complex features three distinct architectural phases. The Alte Staatsgalerie, opened in 1843, is a classicist building designed by Georg Gottlob Barth, originally also housing the Royal Art School. In 1984, the Neue Staatsgalerie was added next to the old building, designed by British architect James Stirling in a controversial postmodern style that transformed the gallery into a leading European museum. This building features a central rotunda and asymmetrical entrance. A third phase occurred between 2000 and 2002 with an extension by Swiss architects Wilfrid and Katharina Steib, which reunited the print, drawing, and photography departments with the main collection and added library and workshop spaces.

The collection is chronologically arranged, covering seven centuries of art. The Alte Staatsgalerie houses Old German paintings from 1300 to 1550, Italian paintings from 1300 to 1800, Dutch paintings from 1500 to 1700, and German Baroque art. It also features art from the 19th century, including Romanticism and Impressionism. The Neue Staatsgalerie is dedicated to 20th and 21st-century modern art, ranging from Pablo Picasso to Oskar Schlemmer, Joan Miró, and Joseph Beuys. The museum also maintains a significant graphic arts collection and a library with over 130,000 media items.

The museum holds several internationally renowned masterpieces. Key works include a pair of marriage portraits by Frans Hals (c. 1635), Canaletto's 'A View of Dolo on the Brenta Canal' (1730-1735), and Annibale Carracci's 'Corpse of Christ' (1583-1585). Modern highlights include Max Beckmann's 'Journey on the Fish', Salvador Dalí's 'The Raised Instant' (1938), Otto Dix's 'The Match Seller' (1920), Franz Marc's 'The Small Yellow Horses' (1912), and Piet Mondrian's 'Composition in White, Red and Blue' (1936). The collection also features significant works by Picasso, Matisse, Miró, and Barnett Newman.

The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart is recognized as one of the most important art museums in Baden-Württemberg and a leading institution in Germany. The 1984 opening of James Stirling's Neue Staatsgalerie was pivotal, transforming the once provincial gallery into a major European destination. The museum has been active in provenance research, notably returning a 15th-century painting attributed to the Master of Flémalle to the estate of Max Stern in 2013. Currently, the museum is undergoing a major modernization and renovation phase expected to last until 2034, during which parts of the collection will be temporarily relocated to the Kunstgebäude am Schlossplatz.