Museum Kunst der Westküste

Museum Kunst der Westküste
Established	2009
Location	Hauptstraße 1, 25938 Alkersum/Föhr, Germany
Type	Art Museum
Director	Thorsten Sadowsky
Website	http://www.mkdw.de/

The Museum Kunst der Westküste (West Coast Art Museum) is a non-profit foundation, located in Alkersum on the north Frisian island Föhr. The museum collects, researches, communicates and exhibits art that deals with the themes of sea and coast. The point of departure is formed by the paintings collection of the museum’s founder, Prof. h.c. Frederik Paulsen.

Collection

The Sammlung Kunst der Westküste (West Coast Art Collection) comprises Danish, German, Dutch and Norwegian art. Executed between 1830 and 1930, the works document in a variety of manners what life is like along the continental North Sea coast. They tell of the timeless grandeur of the sea, the longing for far-off horizons and man’s fear in the face of the intractable elements. Important Scandinavian and German artists of the 19th and 20th centuries are represented, including Anna Ancher, Michael Ancher, Max Beckmann, Johan Christian Dahl, Peder Severin Krøyer, Christian Krohg, Max Liebermann, Emil Nolde and Edvard Munch. These are joined by high-calibre Dutch painters such as the Romantic artist Andreas Schelfhout as well as prominent exponents of The Hague School, among them Jozef Israëls and Hendrik Willem Mesdag. Also in the collection are works by Johan Barthold Jongkind and Eugène Boudin, who are regarded as precursors of impressionism and were of central importance to the development of European landscape painting in the 19th century. Finally, a main focus of the collection is North Frisian painting, comprehensively represented by the works of Otto Heinrich Engel and Hans Peter Feddersen.

Architecture

The Museum was conceived according to plans by Sunder-Plassmann Architekten as a multipart museum complex uniting tradition and modernism in a harmonious whole. Six separate galleries, designed to the highest standard, offer exhibition space of over 900 sqm.

The museum’s architecture addresses local building and landscape history in a differentiated fashion by integrating existing buildings, quoting historical barns and making tangible to visitors the difference in levels between the sandy coastal heathlands and the lower marshland. The complex, built between 2006 and 2009, also includes a museum garden and “Grethjens Gasthof“, built in the style of a Scandinavian manor house from the period around 1900. Carrying on its traditional function as a meeting place for artists working on Föhr and as a site where natives and guests congregate, this building now houses the museum restaurant Grethjens Gasthof.

Awards

In 2011 the museum was nominated for the European Museum of the Year Award. In 2011 Sunder-Plassmann Architekten were awarded the Architekturpreis Schleswig-Holstein. In 2011 the museum received the red dot design award for its corporate design.

References

Atlantic Times online article [1]

External links

Museum website [2]