Kunsthalle "Harry Graf Kessler"
About This Site
A former brick factory on the Goetheplatz that became Weimar's museum of modern art in 1903, and now carries the name of Harry Graf Kessler, the director who showed the French Impressionists here and was forced out in 1906.
From brickworks to Venetian palace, 1880–1903
The building began as a brick factory, and in 1880 a "Permanente Kunstausstellung" was set up in it. It was improved in stages: an upper-light hall in 1892, and by 1897 what the museum calls a magnificent Venetian palace façade. In 1903 it became the Grand Ducal Museum of Art and Applied Art — the institution Harry Graf Kessler was brought in to direct.[1]
Kessler's name on the door, 1903–2006
Kessler ran it from 1903 to 1906, showed French Impressionists here, and had the Deutscher Künstlerbund constituted in the building in 1903. He was forced out in 1906 over an exhibition of nude drawings by Rodin.[1] The hall has carried his name since the Stadtmuseum and the city's cultural department took it over in 2006,[1] a century after his dismissal.
Questions visitors ask
- What is the Kunsthalle Harry Graf Kessler?
- An exhibition hall on the Goetheplatz, once the Grand Ducal Museum of Art and Applied Art, named since 2006 for Harry Graf Kessler, its director from 1903 to 1906.[1]
- Who was Harry Graf Kessler?
- The museum's director from 1903 to 1906. He showed French Impressionists there and had the Deutscher Künstlerbund constituted in the building in 1903, before being forced out over an exhibition of nude drawings by Rodin.[1]
- How old is the building?
- It began as a brick factory; a "Permanente Kunstausstellung" was set up inside it in 1880. It was extended with an upper-light hall in 1892 and given its Venetian palace façade by 1897, becoming the Grand Ducal Museum in 1903.[1]
- Can I visit?
- Not currently — the hall, run by the Stadtmuseum Weimar since 2006, is closed.[1]
Connected Historical Figures
art patron • museum director • publisher • diplomat
He directed this museum from 1903 to 1906, and the hall now carries his name.
Sources (1)
- Kunsthalle "Harry Graf Kessler" — Stadtmuseum Weimar, retrieved 29 August 2026
Visit Information
In Weimar's history
Historical periods
The town's museum of modern art in the period's last decade, and the building where its most cosmopolitan appointment ended in a scandal.
Goethe died in 1832, and Weimar had to work out what a town does after its golden age. It decided to keep going, and the answer took eighty-six years — the era the Klassik Stiftung Weimar calls the Silver Age. Music replaced literature as the thing Weimar was for, two royal patrons paid for it, and the schools they founded outlived the monarchy that funded them.