Neue Pinakothek
A Berlin director got fired by the Kaiser for showing Gauguin — then moved to Munich and quietly built one of Europe's great Impressionist collections.
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The Tschudi Contribution (1905–1914) brought 44 paintings, nine sculptures, and 22 drawings from emerging French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, all purchased privately after public funds were denied. Before Tschudi arrived, Ludwig I had already shaped the collection around German Romanticism and a hall dedicated entirely to Carl Rottmann's Greek landscape cycle, commissioned by royal decree in 1834.
What to look for
- Carl Rottmann's Greek landscape cycle — painted after an 1834 research trip to Greece and given its own hall inside the museum
- The Tschudi Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works, acquired by a director the Kaiser dismissed for hanging Gauguin in Berlin
- Alexander von Branca's 1981 postmodern building — a concrete structure behind a stone facade, replacing the 1859 original
Sits in Munich's Kunstareal alongside the Alte Pinakothek and Pinakothek der Moderne — all three are within easy walking distance of each other.
Neue Pinakothek is one of 37 sights worth the detour in Munich, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Munich pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Munich
- Allianz ArenaThe world's first stadium with a full color-changing exterior — 75,000 seats wrapped in inflated ETFE plastic panels that can change color across the entire facade.
- Deutsches Museum125,000 objects across 50 fields of science and technology — all on a former coal island in the Isar.
- Nymphenburg PalaceAt 632 metres across, this Baroque summer palace is wider than Versailles — and it started as a birth announcement.
- Alte PinakothekThe gallery that taught Europe how to build a museum — then filled it with five centuries of Old Masters.
- FrauenkircheThe twin towers top out at just over 98 meters — Munich caps the entire city at 99 m, so nothing can overtake them on the skyline.
- Englischer GartenA Massachusetts-born American Loyalist, fleeing Britain after the Revolution, drew up plans for what became one of the world's largest urban parks.