The Scharf Collection will be on display to the public for the first time at the Düsseldorf Kunstpalast from March 12 to August 9, 2026. It is one of the most important German private collections of 19th and 20th century French art as well as contemporary international art. In the exhibition halls at the Ehrenhof, visitors can trace the development of painting over two centuries and immerse themselves in the tension between figuration and abstraction.
The Scharf Collection continues the tradition of the legendary Otto Gerstenberg Collection in Berlin and brings together masterpieces by Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. The collection impressively documents the development of modernism from its beginnings with Francisco de Goya through the French avant-garde with Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.
René and Christiane Scharf are the fourth generation to lead the collection into the present day. With works by Sam Francis, Daniel Richter and Katharina Grosse, they are expanding the French focus to include contemporary international positions.
Benefits
- Admission to the exhibition "Monet - Cézanne - Matisse. The Scharf Collection"
- Admission to other concurrent exhibitions at the Kunstpalast
- Admission to the permanent collection of the Kunstpalast