Museum Ludwig

Irene and Peter Ludwig, heirs to a chocolate fortune, collected more than 14,000 pieces of art and artifacts in their lifetime. In 1976 they agreed to donate 350 works of modern art to the city of Cologne, which built the independent Museum Ludwig to house them. The museum opened in 1986 and has grown with further bequests and acquisitions, including a further 864 works gifted by the Ludwigs from their Picasso holdings. This means that Museum Ludwig has the third largest Picasso collection in the world, outside Barcelona and Paris. The permanent collection covers art of the 20th and 21st centuries, and includes Russian avant-garde art, expressionism and surrealism. It holds Europe’s most extensive collection of pop art with numerous works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. The collection also includes 3,000 drawings, nearly 10,000 prints and 70,000 photographs. The museum has a global focus, which was an important part of the Ludwigs’ collection, and this continues to be a central tenet today. Recent acquisitions include works by Anne Imhof, Oscar Murillo, Avery Singer and Nil Yalter.