CURRENT INFORMATION
Dear visitors,
Due to recent circumstances, the security provisions in our museums have been strengthened. Please note our house rules.
Opening Hours
Admission
PERMANENT COLLECTION
Admission is free for children and young people under the age of 18.
Students and visitors over 65 years of age receive reduced admission.
3 Euro
4 Euro
SUNDAYS
PINAKOTHEKEN, MUSEUM
BRANDHORST, SAMMLUNG SCHACK
1 Euro
DAY PASS
PINAKOTHEKEN, MUSEUM
BRANDHORST, SAMMLUNG SCHACK
12 Euro
About Sammlung Schack
With around 180 paintings by German artists, including wellknown works by Arnold Böcklin, Moritz von Schwind, Franz von Lenbach, Hans von Marées and Anselm Feuerbach, the Sammlung Schack ranks as one of the most important museums devoted to German painting of the 19th century. The Collection was established through the efforts of the collector and art patron Count Adolf Friedrich von Schack (1815-1894), and has remained unchanged in its formation since his death. Thus, it primarily contains history paintings and landscapes, but only a few examples (Carl Spitzweg) of genre painting, which was popular at the time. The landscape paintings visually capture the Mediterranean countries: Italy, Greece and, not least, Spain, which Count Schack knew intimately - more than most of his contemporaries - from his extensive travels there. In addition to works by German artists of the time, Count Schack collected copies of 16th and 17th century masterpieces, most notably by Venetian artists, ranging from Giorgione and Titian to Tintoretto and Veronese. The Sammlung Schack thereby represents not only an important documentation of art collecting in Germany, but is, at the same time, a unique museum of the late romantic period, providing visitors with insight into the attendant yearnings and dreams, as well as the world of images of this era that was shaped by journeys, literature, myths and ideals.
Directions
You can reach the Sammlung Schack by
Bus
No 100 (Museumslinie / museum line): to Reitmorstrasse / Schack Galerie
Tram
No 27 to Nationalmuseum
We recommend the use of public transportation. Parking is not available.
Take a closer look at our map (PDF) to get a better overview.
Online Collection
With its Online Collection, the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Bavarian State Painting Collections) is making its entire holdings accessible to the public for the first time: that’s 25,000 artworks in Bavaria, Germany and Europe viewable on a single platform! It is now possible to have an overview not only of all the artworks on display in the Munich galleries – the Alte and Neue Pinakothek, the Sammlung Moderne Kunst in the Pinakothek der Moderne, the Museum Brandhorst and the Sammlung Schack – and in the other state galleries of Bavaria (several thousand works in total), but also of works in the museum storerooms (17,000 works) and more than 4000 works on permanent loan from the Munich collections to over 400 sites, some belonging to institutions which are only partly open to the public.
Every artwork is documented with a photograph, basic information (catalogue/accession number, artist, title, support, size, provenance), and details of its location. The relevant specialist area is also given, to assist with classification.
Adolf Friedrich Graf von Schack
About the Collector
Adolf Friedrich Graf von Schack
A poet and literary historian
Count Adolf Friedrich von Schack was born in Schwerin in the German principality of Mecklenburg in 1815. He began his career as a lawyer and diplomat in the local civil service, but relinquished his post in 1851 in order to devote himself entirely to literary interests. In 1856 Maximilian II of Bavaria invited him to Munich, where he joined the circle of scientists, scholars and writers the king had gathered there to make the city a centre of German intellectual life comparable to eighteenth-century Weimar. Schack numbered among his friends the celebrated poets Emanuel Geibel and Paul Heyse. After the death of Maximilian, in 1864, Schack’s ties with Munich became looser. He travelled widely during the last thirty years of his life, visiting Italy, Spain, Greece and the Middle East. He died in Rome in 1894.
Schack regarded his literary and critical work as his most important achievement. He wrote on the theatre in seventeenth-century Spain and on the Arabian culture of medieval Spain and southern Italy. He had a profound knowledge of Oriental literature and produced a German translation of Firdousī’s Shahnama (The Book of Kings), a major work of Persian poetry. In later years he focused increasingly on his own poetry, taking the subjects of his epic poems and plays from periods of transition and upheaval such as Late Antiquity, the Renaissance and the Reformation. His models were Byron and the German author August von Platen. In 1888 Schack published his autobiography, Ein halbes Jahrhundert (Half a Century), which describes his travels and his encounters with important figures of his time. Today, his poetry is almost completely forgotten, and he is remembered principally for his collection of paintings, amassed mostly in the 1860s and ’70s.
About the Collection
Schack’s chief aim as an art collector was to promote the work of underrated and young, unknown artists. Among those he supported by means of regular purchases and commissions were Moritz von Schwind, whose idealistic approach had been relegated to the sidelines as a result of the triumphant progress of Realism, and the young painters Arnold Böcklin, Anselm Feuerbach and Hans von Marées, whom the contemporary art market disregarded. Although Schack was familiar with the French art of his day and greatly admired Eugène Delacroix, he deliberately acquired work only by German-speaking artists.
Schack’s paintings, the genres to which they belong and their subjects, reflect his own interests and predilections. His notion of art was fundamentally idealistic, and that automatically precluded all forms of Realism. ‘Poetry is the mother of all the arts,’ he wrote, ‘and both painters and musicians may be termed genuine artists only when they are imbued with the poetic spirit in the way that poets are.’ Most works in the collection are therefore history paintings or landscapes. With one or two exceptions, notably works by Spitzweg, the genre painting so popular in Schack’s day is absent.
The landscapes depict motifs from Mediterranean countries: Italy, Greece and especially Spain, which Schack visited on many occasions. Böcklin’s and Feuerbach’s paintings show not only the gods and myths of ancient Greece and Rome, but also subjects taken from the work of later poets, from Dante and Petrarch to Goethe. Schwind’s pictures evoke the sagas and legends of medieval Germany, which had been rediscovered in the late eighteenth century and invoked as an alternative to classical antiquity.
Along with work by his contemporaries, Schack collected copies of major sixteenth- and seventeenth-century paintings, notably of such Venetian artists as Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese. Among the copyists was the young Franz von Lenbach, later to become Germany’s leading portrait painter.
Classical antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; Greece, Italy and the Spain of Romantic imagination: these eras, these places provided a focus for escapist longings, offering a refuge from the upheavals of the dawning modern age. The collection put together by the cosmopolitan Schack reflects this with compelling force. The paintings conjure up far-off times and realms as an expression of contemporary desires and hopes. In 1881 Schack published his thoughts on the works in his collection in a visitors’ guide titled Meine Gemäldesammlung (My Picture Collection).
Schack’s collection was originally housed in his mansion in Brienner Strasse. It was opened to the public in 1865 and attracted a large number of visitors. The imposing building was dominated by a neo-Renaissance façade designed by Lorenz Gedon.
In 1876 Schack bequeathed his collection to the German emperor. Thus it became the property of Wilhelm II on Schack’s death in 1894. Wilhelm left the collection in Munich, and in 1909 erected the present gallery in Prinzregentenstrasse, together with a building next door for the Prussian embassy. The leading German sculptor of the day, Adolf von Hildebrand, produced the first designs for this architectural complex, which was built by Max Littmann.
The Schack-Galerie became part of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Bavarian State Painting Collections) in 1939. With the exception of three paintings burned in the fire that destroyed the Munich Glaspalast in 1931 and four further losses, the collection has remained unchanged since Schack’s death.
Barrier-free access
The Sammlung Schack with its approximately 150 paintings exhibited over three floors, unfortunately is not accessible to people with disabilities. This concerns both the access to the building via the staircase at the main entrance and the interior access to the three exhibition levels. In order to overcome this shortcoming, the Munich State Building Authority I (Staatliches Bauamt München I) has drawn up a preliminary design, which provides for the installation of a lift system and barrier-free access to the service rooms. The costs are foreseen in the budget for 2017/18. A decision on this is still pending.
Cloakroom
The cloakroom is on the ground floor. Jackets and bags can be handed in for a fee of 1 euro per person. person can be handed in.
Information
+49 (0)89 23805 2286
House Rules
Dear visitors,
in order to ensure security in our museums, we ask for your support:
- Please hand in all items you are carrying, such as bags (of any size) and coats, at the cloakroom or deposit them in our lockers.
- Clothing, bags, or items that may be carried for special personal reasons as decided by the supervisory staff on a case-by-case basis will be inspected for their contents and then marked as checked with a wristband.
We regret the inconvenience this may cause and ask for your understanding in the interest of protecting the artworks and buildings.
Prof. Dr. Bernhard Maaz
General Director Bavarian State Painting Collections
We kindly ask you consider the house rules (PDF), cloakroom rules (PDF) and terms & conditions (PDF) that apply in all our museums. Thank you very much!