Kunstmuseum Walter

The Kunstmuseum Walter is a private museum in Augsburg housed in the landmarked Glaspalast (Glass Palace). The building was once Production Plant IV of the Mechanical Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mill of Augsburg. Construction entrepreneur Ignaz Walter, who died in 2023, acquired the property in 1999 and had it extensively renovated. Since opening in 2002, the museum has shown exclusively original works of modern and contemporary art across roughly 6,000 square meters (about 65,000 square feet) on two floors. The building's architecture, defined by numerous columns and large expanses of glass, lets plenty of natural light into the exhibition rooms. Your visit begins on the second floor (the European first floor) with a long, black tunnel whose ceiling bears the words "Beruhigen, Entspannen und Genießen" (Calm Down, Relax and Enjoy) before you enter the actual galleries.

Walter personally assembled the collection beginning in the early 1970s. It includes about 1,000 works on display and a similar number in storage. A special feature of the presentation is the direct comparison between the art of the former West Germany and the so-called Leipzig School of East Germany. Nearly all the renowned artists of both movements are represented, including Gerhard Richter, Baselitz, and Immendorff from the West, and Neo Rauch, Mattheuer, and Bisky from the East. The museum also houses the largest private collection of Anselm Kiefer in Germany, which includes large sculptures from the series Women of Antiquity. A separate cabinet is devoted to works from the 19th and early 20th centuries that fall outside the collection's original time frame.

Besides contemporary painting, the Glaspalast is home to other cultural institutions. The glass collection of the artist Egidio Costantini, regarded as one of the most important glass artists, is unique in the world. Many of his works were created in collaboration with famous painters such as Picasso and Chagall. Some of these one-of-a-kind pieces can be seen in the neighboring Atrium-Palast. The same building also houses the Kunsthalle Augsburg, which is run by the city and regularly presents changing exhibitions of modern art. The Galerie Noah serves as an extension of the museum and regularly stages solo exhibitions by artists such as Markus Lüpertz and Hermann Nitsch.