Museum Folkwang

When Karl Ernst Osthaus founded Museum Folkwang in Hagen in 1902, it was one of the first museums anywhere devoted to the art of its own time. Essen acquired his collection after his death and brought it to the city in 1922. The museum lost hundreds of works to the Nazi campaign against "degenerate art" in 1937, and rebuilding the collection after the war shaped much of what hangs here now.

The galleries trace art from the nineteenth century to the present. They are especially strong in French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism and in German Expressionism, with works such as Gauguin's Contes barbares and Van Gogh's Portrait of Armand Roulin. The museum also holds a major photography collection and the German Poster Museum.

Since 2010 much of the museum has been housed in a building by David Chipperfield. Its light-filled pavilions are arranged around inner courtyards and gardens, so moving between rooms is calm and easy to follow. Art lovers drawn to modernism will find the most to linger over.