Following its founding in 1909, the Kunsthalle Mannheim attained the status of a pioneering institution within the German museum scene thanks to the radically modern collection concept espoused by its legendary directors Fritz Wichert (1909–1923) and Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub (1923–1933). It was here that the art-historical term “modernism” was profoundly shaped through the controversial acquisition of the French avant-garde, ranging from works by Edouard Manet to post-Impressionism as well as Expressionism and New Objectivity. The Kunsthalle thus developed as one of the first civic collections of modern art in the world. The exceptional sculpture collection was initiated in 1921 with a donation from Sally Falk. As part of the confiscation operations led by the Nazis, 91 paintings, 8 sculptures, and 466 graphic works were seized – an irreplaceable loss. Walter Passarge (1936–1958) then tried to fill in the gaps after 1945. Heinz Fuchs (1958–1983) and Manfred Fath (1983–2002) further built up the international focus of the collection, adding works of Informalism and Nouveau Réalisme. Today the Mannheim collection comprises approximately 1,900 paintings, 860 sculptures and installations, 34,000 works on paper, and 800 objects of applied art – including key works by Max Beckmann, Francis Bacon, Michel Majerus, Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, and William Kentridge. Building on this foundation, we remain committed to the artistic avant-garde and the existential questioning of our time.