BMW Art Guide by Independent Collectors
Museum Frieder Burda
The collection is presented to the public in alternating special exhibitions, always from new perspectives and in new contexts.
Frieder Burda (1936–2019) was one of the internationally most prolific collectors of modern and contemporary art – with a focus on German and American painting as well as the late work of Pablo Picasso. The world-class collection, which he began to assemble in 1968, now encompasses around 1000 paintings, sculptures and works on paper, including masterpieces by artists as diverse as Georg Baselitz, Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Willem de Kooning, Sigmar Polke, Jackson Pollock, Gerhard Richter, and Andy Warhol.
Its permanent home is the Museum Frieder Burda, designed by New York star architect Richard Meier and located within the Unesco World Heritage site around Baden-Baden’s famous Lichtentaler Allee. The building is characterized by its spacious, light-filled interior, which is visually connected to the surrounding sculpture garden and wider park setting by transparent panes. Since its opening in 2004, the museum has gained great acclaim for its high- profile shows of modern and contemporary art, typically featuring three international loan exhibitions per year.