Städtische Gemäldegalerie

The Städtische Gemäldegalerie stood in Kassel’s White Palace from 1921 to 1934. It was a short-lived municipal gallery for contemporary art on Friedrichsplatz. The building once housed the Bose Museum, which held regional works from the Hessian court. After the First World War the palace rooms became available and the city opened the new gallery. The collection mixed local 19th-century paintings with international avant-garde pieces. The gallery’s growth came from two sources: the Bose bequest of 1896 and city purchases. Louise von Bose gave her family’s Hessian art to the city, while the council added portraits such as Philipp von Hessen by Michael Müller from 1570. Oberbürgermeister Herbert Stadler bought French naïve works in Paris and Berlin, and William A. Sinclair lent ten modern pieces. Critics like Wilhelm Uhde praised the French acquisitions, and Samuel Beckett’s uncle contributed further loans. Visitors found rooms filled with Courbet’s landscapes, Feininger’s church scenes and Séraphine de Senlis’s dreamlike flowers. The collection ranged from Courbet’s Wiesenhang bei Ornans to Vivin’s fairground view of Saint-Germain. After the gallery closed in 1934, its remaining works formed the core of the Neue Galerie. Today only a few paintings survive in Kassel, while others have moved to museums in New York or private hands.