Image: Foyer of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart with the renovation campaign icon. Courtesy Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart will close its longstanding presentation of Classical Modernism in the Stirling Building on 11 October 2026, ahead of a comprehensive redesign of the galleries and preparatory work for energy-efficiency renovations. Selected highlights will return to public view on 19 February 2027 in a new collection presentation, ‘Simply the Best!’, at the Kunstgebäude am Schlossplatz in Stuttgart.
The current display brings together works from a collection the Staatsgalerie describes as one of Germany’s most significant, with particular strength in Classical Modernism. Its holdings in the field include works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Oskar Schlemmer. The museum presents the works as a record of artistic upheaval, ranging from expressionist colour and cubist experiments to Bauhaus discipline and surrealist imagery.
Visitors will have until 11 October to see the collection in its established arrangement, described by the museum as a form shaped over decades and familiar to generations of visitors. The subsequent reconfiguration will change the presentation of the works before selected highlights are shown in ‘Simply the Best!’ at the Kunstgebäude from 19 February 2027. The museum’s exhibition listing gives the run of ‘Simply the Best!’ as 19 February 2027 to 1 January 2034.
At the Kunstgebäude the museum will show its twentieth-century holdings in a strictly chronological interim presentation sorted by decade, turning the building’s rooms into ‘time capsules’ covering 1900 to 1970 and bringing paintings and sculptures together in combinations it says have not been seen before. The Staatsgalerie names Picasso, Max Beckmann, Schlemmer, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Maria Lassnig and Amedeo Modigliani among the artists involved, and says the display will also address provenance research, the history of the collection and the shortage of women artists in its holdings.
The changes are part of wider work affecting the museum’s buildings. Room 14 of the Old Building is closed to visitors until an expected date of summer 2027. The monumental Adolf Hölzel glass windows in the ground-floor foyer of the Old Building have already been removed. The museum says that the Schlemmer mural will next be enclosed for protection, while Lawrence Weiner’s work ‘One Potato Two Potato Three Potato & (More)’ will be covered temporarily. Window replacement in the Old Building is also scheduled to begin, and construction may cause noise in its exhibition rooms depending on the work stages.
The Staatsgalerie identifies the Stirling Building as a postmodern structure designed by architect James Stirling and opened in 1984. The museum says Stirling intended the Neue Staatsgalerie to function both as an outstanding museum and as a major city landmark. During the renovation period, toilets in the Old Building—apart from the accessible toilet—are expected to remain unavailable until spring 2027; toilet containers will be placed in the Ehrenhof, directly in front of the Old Building entrance. The museum states that it will never be closed completely during the works, which are expected to run until around 2034, with partial closures first in the Old Building and, from about 2030, the whole Stirling Building.
The collection’s final weeks in its current form will also be marked by the 9 October event ‘Move it – Alles in Bewegung!’, scheduled from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. The Staatsgalerie says the programme will include live DJs, a dance workshop, walking acts, performances by students from the State University of Music and the Performing Arts Stuttgart, and a final opportunity to see the Classical Modernism presentation as currently installed. The works will then be prepared for their move to the Kunstgebäude am Schlossplatz.
