Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg

The collection on show at the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg is described as “the art of the fantastic.” The museum’s central holdings, the Dieter Scharf Collection in Memory of Otto Gerstenberg, is made up of surrealist works, including pieces that foreshadowed the official movement and those by artists working in a surrealist vein. It is located in Berlin-Charlottenburg in the west of the city, across from the Museum Berggruen and close to Charlottenburg Palace. The collection covers more than 250 years of art history, starting with works by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Francisco de Goya and Victor Hugo, moving on through key figures of symbolism and culminating in the main protagonists of the surrealist movement. Highlights include Max Ernst’s “Le Triomphe de l’amour/fausse allégorie” (1937), René Magritte’s “Gaspard de la nuit” (1965) and Man Ray’s “Erotique voilée” (1933). Works by Jean Dubuffet demonstrate how the surrealist tradition continued into the postwar period. The museum is one of six locations that display the Nationalgalerie’s diverse collection. The others are the Alte Nationalgalerie, Friedrichswerdersche Kirche, Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie and Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart.