Current notice: Visitors are kindly requested to enter the exhibition without bags (of any size), coats, or outdoor jackets. Please leave these at the cloakroom or use the lockers.

The Scharf Collection, one of the most significant private art collections in Germany, is being showcased in a large-scale exhibition for the very first time. The collection primarily consists of French art from the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as international contemporary artworks.

The exhibition in the Alte Nationalgalerie presents a selection of some 150 items, including prominent artworks by the likes of Auguste Renoir, Pierre Bonnard, Edgar Degas and Claude Monet, and takes visitors on a journey through the collection: from Goya and French Realism to the French Impressionists and Cubists to contemporary art. One special highlight is a selection of prints by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, which have been fully preserved in the collection.

The Scharf Collection is a direct continuation of what was once Otto Gerstenberg’s extensive private Berlin-based art collection, which encompassed the dawn of modernism with artworks by Goya to the pioneers of the French avant-garde with works by Gustave Courbet and Edgar Degas. Gerstenberg’s daughter Margarethe Scharf was able to preserve the majority of the collection despite considerable war losses suffered during the Second World War. His grandsons Walther and Dieter Scharf each went on to establish their own collections based on the artworks that had been bequeathed to them, with Dieter Scharf focussing on surrealism. His collection has been on permanent loan to the Nationalgalerie in the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg since 2008.

Walther Scharf and his wife Eve – in collaboration with their son René – further consolidated the French focus of the collection, acquiring works by Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Today, René Scharf and his wife Christiane have shifted their focus to contemporary art and harbour a particular interest in the ways in which the medium of painting has expanded over time and the relationship between representational and abstract imagery. Against this backdrop, René and Christiane Scharf continue to modernise the family tradition of art collecting by acquiring works by Sam Francis, Sean Scully, Daniel Richter and Katharina Grosse.

As part of its partnership with FlixTrain to mark the 200th anniversary of Berlin's Museum Island, FlixTrain is presenting the Flix Art Hours at the exhibition. Starting on the opening day of the exhibition, visitors are invited to experience one of Germany's leading private collections free of charge on four Thursdays – October 30 and November 6, 20, and 27 – from 4 to 6 p.m. each day. In doing so, FlixTrain is setting an example for cultural participation and underlining its commitment to moving more people – not only when traveling, but also through unique experiences that inspire and connect.

An exhibition of the Alte Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in cooperation with the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, with support from the FREUNDE der Nationalgalerie and the Berliner Volksbank, with further assistance from Siemens AG.