Since September, the Museum Barberini in Potsdam presents a permanent display of the extensive collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings from the collection of the museum’s founder, Hasso Plattner, including masterpieces by Monet, Renoir, and Signac. With thirty-four paintings by Monet, there is no venue in Europe outside of Paris where visitors can see more works by this painter.

The holdings of paintings by Caillebotte, Pissarro, Signac, Sisley, and Vlaminck are also unique in Germany. In addition to its temporary exhibitions, the Museum Barberini now showcases a permanent collection that is unparalleled in Germany. This makes Potsdam one of the most important international centers of Impressionist landscape painting.

Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley formed a group in the 1860s and revolutionized art with light-infused landscapes that were liberated from the traditional subject matter of the era. In 1874 they became known as the “Impressionists”: artists who preferred to work outdoors, capturing fleeting impressions directly on the canvas.

Impressionism has been the focus of Hasso Plattner’s collecting since 2000. As Plattner explains, “The paintings involve us as viewers in a very direct way. We can practically feel the wind on our skin and the temperature of the water when we look at Monet’s sailboats on the Seine. No other art can do that. The Impressionists are geniuses of communication.” Roughly three years after the Museum Barberini first opened, Plattner is now giving one hundred works from his private collection as well as from the Hasso Plattner Foundation to the museum as a permanent loan.

Photo credit: Helge Mundt, © Museum Barberini