FAQ
Is the museum a municipal or state museum?
The Lenbachhaus is a municipal museum.
How large is the Lenbachhaus’s collection?
The collection housed at the Lenbachhaus currently comprises ca. 35,000 works of art, grouped into several divisions that are documented in separate inventories.
Which divisions of the collection are there?
The Lenbachhaus is home to the world’s largest collection of works by the artists of the Blue Rider circle as well as collections of nineteenth-century art and works of the New Objectivity. Another mainstay of the collections is the oeuvre of Joseph Beuys. Over the past several decades, the museum has also assembled an extensive collection of contemporary art.
Do the presentations from the collection and exhibitions in the museum’s galleries ever change?
We strive to produce richly varied presentations of the art in our sizable collection that involve the works in an ongoing dialogue. Our exhibition program is brought to life by encounters between the holdings that are the museum’s backbone and contemporary developments. Our visitors can expect to gain new insights into our diverse collections every time they come—no two visits will be the same.
How were the works to be included in the Collection Online selected?
Our long-term goal is to digitize virtually our entire collection. In selecting a first round of works for inclusion in our Collection Online, we aimed for a representative cross-section of our holdings: the Blue Rider collection, the art of the nineteenth century, and art after 1945. We have also included works currently on display as well as widely beloved highlights. We believe that serendipitous encounters with previously unknown and rarely-seen treasures are one of the great potentials of an online collection, and so we added a selection of unexpected objects that are currently in storage.
When will the museum's entire collection be online?
We make every effort to update and enlarge the Collection Online on an ongoing basis. The goal is to present the complete collection online and to provide extensive ancillary information on all works and individuals. Digitizing the works and investigating each object's copyright situation is a time-consuming task, which we work to complete while also mounting a richly varied program of exhibitions. That is why, despite our best efforts, we cannot predict when the entire collection will be online.
I saw an object in an exhibition and can’t find it in the Collection Online. Why is that?
Although we strive to digitize all works in our collection as soon as possible, not all objects are available online at this time. Objects that are on loan to the museum for presentation in a temporary exhibition will not be included in our Collection Online.
How do I know which information to include when I use an image?
To include the complete and accurate required information, simply copy the example credit line we provide for each object.
What do I do when I need image files for a specific work but can’t find it in the Collection Online or the resolution is too low?
To request reproductions or higher-resolution images, please contact our reproduction team directly.
Why don’t I see additional information on the provenance of works?
At the Lenbachhaus, we are fully committed to investigating the provenance of our collection and take the historical responsibility bound up with it very seriously. For over fifteen years, we have complied with international agreements (Washington Declaration, 1998; Declaration of the Federal Government, 1999; and the subsequent Recommendations, 2001) by conducting research into the provenance of the objects in our collection. The Credit line field includes some information on the past and present ownership of a work (e.g., donation, permanent loan, acquisition).
In addition to accurately documenting all acquisitions, we strive to identify works of art formerly in Jewish ownership and objects that were unlawfully taken from their owners and, when appropriate, restitute them to the heirs of the rightful owners. For legal reasons, we cannot provide information on objects for which this process has not been completed. However, we plan to include detailed information on the provenance of the objects, to the extent that publication is consistent with personality rights and data protection law, in a future expanded version of our Collection Online.
Here you can find for further information on provenance research at the Lenbachhaus.
Why are there more male artists than female artists in the Collection Online?
For 70 years now the Lenbachhaus has focused on strengthening the proportion of women artists in exhibitions and aquisitions, in the contemporary field, but also in the 19th century and in classical modern art. The aim of Lenbachhaus is, on the one hand, to strengthen positions that are already represented in our collection (e.g. Gabriele Münter, Maria Lassnig, Isa Genzken, Marianne von Werefkin) or to show art that has never been seen in Munich before in exhibitions (e.g. Georgiana Hougthon, Hilma af Klint, Emma Kunz, Marcia Hafif, Lea Lublin, Senga Nengudi, Rochelle Feinstein, Sheela Gowda, Florine Stettheimer, Angela Bulloch, Sylvie Fleury, Monica Bonvicini, many of these artist had solo exhibitions at the Lenbachhaus in recent years).
For many years now, we have also focused on acquiring contemporary works by women artists when it comes to new acquisitions. Among other things, where the collection activities aim at furnishing entire artist's rooms, we strive for increasing parity in our acquisition policy: for example, with Ulrike Ottinger, Miriam Cahn, Hito Steyerl, Michaela Eichwald, Senga Nengudi, Sheela Gowda. Important acquisitions in the field of classical modernism serve to increase the percentage of women artists represented in the historical departments through positions not previously represented: e.g. Maria Franck-Marc, Elisabeth Epstein, Anita Rée.
In art up to the 19th century and in the Blue Rider / New Objectivity collection as well as in art after 1945 (with the exception of the latest international contemporary art since around 2000), the overall smaller proportion of women in acquisitions, exhibitions and collection presentations corresponds to the social and institutional framework. Thanks to the acquisition policy, it became possible that the average proportion of women artists in the exhibitions of the collection from the 16th century to the present in 2019 was now around 20%.
The collection, the program and the publications of the Lenbachhaus are by no means represented in the online collection and are completely different. Although the Lenbachhaus took on a pioneering role very early on, this is unfortunately not reflected in the online collection. Solely because of reasons of copyright, fewer artists are shown in the online collection whose copyright has not yet expired. We very much regret this ourselves. However, we cannot offer a solution, either financially or in terms of copyright: it is easier to publish art works that have been created up until the 19th century since there are no copyright restrictions anymore. We strive to show contemporary art as much as possible, too, but it takes time to clear rights individually.
How does the search function work? Have the objects been tagged with keywords?
For the time being, we only offer a simple search function. Searches are run over the complete object records. We have not yet tagged all the objects with keywords. We are working to improve the search function to automatically correct, e.g., for spelling variants and typing mistakes.
Can I enter several search terms at once, say, Jawlensky and Werefkin?
Yes. You will be shown results containing either of the search terms or both.
How can I find out whether an object is currently on view in an exhibition at the Lenbachhaus?
The record for an object includes a field labeled "On view," displaying either "in (exhibition title)" or "no." You can use filters to either run a search for art works on display or for art works included in a particular exhibition.
Are undated objects included in the timeline?
For undated objects, the Date field contains the artist’s dates of birth and death, allowing them to be included in the timeline.
Why am I not allowed to download or otherwise use certain images?
You can download all reproductions of works that are in the public domain. Works are in the public domain when their authors have been dead for at least seventy years. We have decided not to place new legal restrictions on these works and publish them under the Creative Commons License CC0 1.0. You may use these images without asking us for permission. You may download, share, copy, distribute, and use them (for scholarly, educational, publishing, and other, including commercial, purposes), or edit, modify, and build on them. We would appreciate it if you mentioned the source (the museum) and provided information on the author, included a link to the license, and indicated whether you made any alterations to the image. Any dissemination of the material on your part should be governed by the same conditions: if you remix, modify, or otherwise directly build on it, you should publish your work under the same license that applied to the original without stipulating additional restrictions or imposing them through technical devices.
Works by living artists and artists who have been dead for less than seventy years are not in the public domain and so cannot be downloaded. We have diligently investigated and ascertained the copyright situation of any such work before including it in our Collection Online. In some cases, the authors have delegated the exercise of their rights to VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, which advises on which uses you may make of the material, determines the applicable royalty, and issues the required authorization. Information on the right holders is always displayed directly below the images.
You must request and receive permission from the Lenbachhaus prior to using these images, as well as to receive high-resolution images in the .tiff format that you may need, e.g., for larger reproductions. In such instances, please contact us at repro-lenbachhaus(at)muenchen.de. The reproduction authorization covers the photograph we provide; please contact the right holders identified in the caption to request permission to use the work.
A filter functionality allowing you to search for works that are in the public domain will be implemented in the near future.
What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that helps authors share copyright-protected creative work by providing ready-made licenses. Six different standard licenses spell out under which conditions protected content may be used.
Which image resolutions are available? Why are images not available at a higher resolution?
We provide digital reproductions of works in the public domain for download in files with resolutions of 2000 px (long edge), 300 dpi. For works covered by copyright, we cannot offer images of the same quality because we do not own the rights. Images of such works are available at a resolution of 800 px (long edge), 72 dpi.