The main focus of Museum Kunst der Westküste is on paintings from 1830 until 1930 in the four North Sea countries of Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, to which the self-chosen general subject of “sea and seaside” is central. The collection concept encompasses the magnificent landscapes as well as the various areas of life and work along the west coast of the North Sea from northern Norway to the southern Netherlands.
Norwegian landscape painting is represented by works of, among others, Johan Christian Dahl and Edvard Munch, but also by paintings of German artists who, starting in the 1820s, discovered the country up North. Another focus is on the painters of the famous Skagen artists’ colony, including Anna and Michael Ancher, Peder Severin Krøyer, Viggo Johansen, and Christian Krohg. Of course, Northern German painting is not absent: the collection includes large bodies of work by Hans Peter Feddersen, the first painter to consider the North Frisian landscape worthy of depiction, and Otto H. Engel, his fellow artist from Berlin who with his paintings of Föhr women in traditional costumes and historical Frisian houses earned himself the reputation of being “the painter of Föhr”. Expressionist artists such as Erich Heckel, Emil Nolde, and Max Beckmann were also inspired by the German North Sea coast.
A special focus is on the German Impressionist Max Liebermann who, from the 1870s until the First World War, spent every summer in the Netherlands and whose works are a mainstay of the West Coast Art Collection. He is joined by Dutch fellow painters such as Henrik Willem Mesdag and Jozef Israëls as well as Piet Mondrian and Jan Toorop.
The collection also includes numerous works by contemporary artists such as Thomas Wrede, Jochen Hein, Nan Hoover, Joakim Eskildsen, Anja Jensen, Martin Parr, Gerhard Richter, Trine Søndergaard, Mila Teshaieva, and Volker Tiemann.
The West Coast Art Collection cannot be shown on a permanent basis and is therefore presented each year in shifting thematic constellations in temporary exhibitions.
