Press release: Official re-opening of Göttingen University Art Collection

Nr. 81/2011 - 15.04.2011

Due to urgently needed renovation work, the University of Göttingen Art Collection has been closed for several years. From Friday, 15 April 2011, a new permanent exhibition can be viewed in a modernised and enlarged setting. Over recent weeks, curator Dr. Anne-Katrin Sors and art history students have designed and set up the exhibition. The conceptual design underlines the collection’s function as a teaching collection: some 120 paintings are on show, providing an overview of Flemish, Dutch, Italian and German painting of the 14th to 20th centuries, and for the first time a gallery containing 15 works has been devoted to sculpture. The exhibition floor area has been considerably enlarged, now amounting to 500 square meters, and coloured partitions have been installed in the rooms. “We are displaying many items for the first time, items which until now have been in store and never exhibited publicly”, explains Dr. Sors. “The technical and architectural reorganisation of the rooms also allows paintings to be replaced more easily so that visitors can regularly be offered the opportunity to see something new.”

University President Prof. Dr. Ulrike Beisiegel welcomes the reopening of the art collection: “Our collections make an important contribution to research and teaching performed at the University of Göttingen. They constantly form the subject of Master and Doctoral theses and enable our students to gain valuable practical experience.” The art collection of Göttingen University is Germany’s oldest university art exhibition to have been brought into being explicitly as a teaching collection. Its holdings include approximately 300 paintings, 2,500 drawings, 15,000 prints and some 100 sculptures, as well as around 150 works by video artists from all over the world. Among the collection’s most precious items are works by Dürer, Botticelli, Rembrandt and Goya, and items of modern art by Nolde, Beckmann and Modersohn-Becker.

The new permanent exhibition is being officially opened on Friday, 15 April 2011. Welcome addresses will be given by the President of the University, Professor Beisiegel, and the Director of the Department of Art History, Professor Dr. Carsten-Peter Warncke. Dr. Sors will then explain the exhibition concept. The event, which is open to the public, begins at 7 p.m. in the exhibition rooms in the Altes Auditorium, Weender Straße 2, second floor.

During the reopening phase the exhibition opening hours are being extended. On 16th and 17th April and in the periods 21st to 25th April and 28th April to 1st May its doors will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. From 8th May onwards the regular opening hours of the “Sunday Strolls”, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., will apply. Guided tours given by the curator will take place at 3 p.m. on Thursday, 21st April and Monday, 25th April, in which Dr. Sors will explain the new collection concept. On Saturday, 30th April, an activity afternoon for children from eight years of age will take place from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the topic of woodblock printing.