Kustodie/Kunstsammlung der Universität Leipzig

The Kunstsammlung der Universität Leipzig stands in the heart of Leipzig, a city shaped by six centuries of learning. Its collection grew from the university’s founding in 1409, when artworks were added to adorn lecture halls and libraries. Today the Kustodie manages around 10,000 objects: paintings, sculptures, epitaphs from three centuries, portrait galleries, estates of artists and extensive graphic holdings. The collection survived the losses of the Second World War and the deliberate destruction of the Paulinerkirche in 1968. After reunification, the university began to restore works and return them to the rebuilt Augustusplatz campus. Five ‘memory complexes’ now trace the university’s story from medieval wall paintings to Werner Tübke’s socialist mural ‘Arbeiterklasse und Intelligenz’. Visitors find the Studiensammlung on the ground floor of the Rektoratsgebäude. It offers a walk through the university’s past with significant pieces displayed in room settings. Elsewhere on campus, restored works from the former church hang in the Paulinum’s Aula and Andachtsraum, linking modern spaces with the lost heritage of the 19th-century Augusteum.