Kunsthalle Bremen. The Kunsthalle Bremen is an art museum in Bremen, Germany. It is located close to the Bremen Old Town on the Culture Mile. The Kunsthalle was built in 1849, enlarged in 1902 by architect Eduard Gildemeister, and expanded several more times, most notably in 2011. Since 1977, the building has been designated a Kulturdenkmal on Germany's buildings heritage list. The museum houses a collection of European paintings from the 14th century to the present day, sculptures from the 16th to 21st centuries and a New Media collection. Among its highlights are French and German paintings from the 19th and 20th century, including important works by Claude Monet, Édouard Manet and Paul Cézanne, along with major paintings by Lovis Corinth, Max Liebermann, Max Beckmann and Paula Modersohn-Becker. The New Media section features works by John Cage, Otto Piene, Peter Campus, Olafur Eliasson, and Nam June Paik. The Department of Prints and Drawings has 220,000 sheets from the 15th to 20th centuries, one of largest collections of its kind in Europe. The Kunsthalle Bremen is operated by the non-profit Bremen Art Society, making it the only German museum with an extensive art collection from the 14th to 21st centuries which is still in private ownership. In 1823, a group of 34 businessmen interested in art founded an Art Society in Bremen with the aim of spreading a sense of beauty and form. It is one of the oldest such societies in Germany. The first years of the association's activities were focused on private art exhibitions, with the acquisition of works backed financially from ticket proceeds and business donations. Ten years after its founding, the Society owned 13 paintings, 585 drawings and 3917 leaf prints. The majority of the paintings were Old Masters, including the famous Madonna of Masolino and a series of paintings of Dutch painters of the 17th Century, such as Jan van Goyen and Pieter Wouwerman. After 1843, large public exhibitions were organized in association with similar associations in Hannover, Lübeck, Greifswald, Rostock and Stuttgart. By 1846 the society had grown to 575 members. The Kunstverein Bremen is still the exclusive owner of the Kunsthalle Bremen and today has over 8000 members. The society is funded from foundations, private donations, bequests, and grants from the city of Bremen. Supported by numerous foundations and patrons, the Art Society put out a competitive bid for a new museum building. A then very young Lueder Rutenberg-himself a member of the Art Association-won against prominent competitors. The Society broke ground on the Kunsthalle on 1 July 1847, becoming the first Society in Germany with its own building. The construction project was located on a former rubbish dump in the vicinity of the old city ramparts and the building was finished in 1849. Rutenberg's design was of a dignified but understated two-story building with a three-axis central projection of round arches. While the collections were largely owned by the Kunstverein, the property itself was owned by the city. Four stone figures over the entrance are of Raphael, Michelangelo, Dürer, and Rubens, created by the sculptor Adolph Steinhäuser. After another competition among Bremen architects, a much-needed enlargement was commissioned in 1898. Albert Dunkel was selected to design the interiors, Eduard Gildemeister for the monumental sandstone facade, and decoration by renowned sculptors Georg Roemer and Georg Wrba. The foundation work was begun in 1899 and on 15 February 1902 the opening ceremony took place. The facade was under construction until 1904. The expansion was funded by foundations and businessmen in Bremen. The art gallery was closed shortly after the outbreak of war and the collection was initially stored in the basement. In the night of 5 September 1942, a fire bomb destroyed the central staircase and six rooms upstairs. It also burned the painting Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze, which because of its size could not be removed. Today a second version hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. After this damage, large parts of the collection were moved to protected areas underneath the Bremer Landesbank and Norddeutschen Kreditbank. As the severity of air raids on Bremen increased, Mayor Böhmcker finally decreed that the collection should be housed outside the city in safety. The removal of the artworks began in 1943 to four different places: the paintings, drawings and graphic sheets were divided between Karnzow Castle of Count Konigsmark in Kyritz, Schloss Neumühle of Count von der Schulenburg in Salzwedel, and Schwöbber Castle near Hameln. The sculptures were taken to the royal crypt at Bückeburg Castle.