Kulturforum and Gemäldegalerie private tour with art historian
Explore extensive collections of Prussian art on this 3-hour walking tour in the Kulturforum and the Gemäldegalerie. In the 1950s the Kulturforum complex was built at the limits of West Berlin, near the intersection of the Soviet, British, and American sectors. The complex contained much of the massive art collections divided by the Cold War separation of the city and is often referred to as a modernist response to the Museum Island.
Your tour with start with a discussion on the modernist features of the Kulturforum, including trips past the beautiful Neue Nationalgalerie, designed by Mies van der Rohe, as well as the State Library and Philharmonie, both by Hans Scharoun.
Next, you'll walk through the halls of the Gemäldegalerie and experience its exceptional art collection first-hand. During the Cold War, Old Master paintings from the 13th to 18th centuries were housed in the suburban Dahlem district of West Berlin. Rather than return the precious collection to the Museum Island, the Gemäldegalerie was built in 1998 to be the permanent new home for masterpieces from artists such as Van Eyck, Bruegel, Dürer, Raphael, Tizian, Caravaggio, Rubens, Vermeer and Rembrandt.
You'll have the chance to see Rembrandt’s Cornelis Claesz Anslo and his wife, Aaltje and Samson threatening his father-in-law, which are close to two of the finest works by the Dutch master Frans Hals, Malle Babbe and the portrait of One-year-old Catharina Hooft and her nurse, as well as a version of Sandro Botticelli’s Venus Rising and Antonio da Correggio’s Leda with the Swan.
You'll become fully immersed in exceptional art and your guide will help you understand the ever-changing role of art in society. You'll also see Dutch Golden Age paintings and the octagonal Rembrandt room in the museum. There's too much to see in three hours and the collection is so exquisite that you'll be wanting to return to the Gemäldegalerie again and again.