The Ludwig Museum was established in 1976 for the purpose of displaying artworks produced after the year 1900. It was named for Peter Ludwig, chocolate magnate and art collector, and consists in large part of works donated from his collection. Peter was not born into chocolate, but was a student of art history. In 1951 he married Irene Monheim, the great-granddaughter of Leonard Monheim, founder of the Trumpf Chocolate Company and successful applier of factory techniques to chocolate-making. Peter joined the company and apparently had a talent for chocolate management, as the company was eventually renamed for him. With his ample resources, he and Irene, who shared his love of modern art, together amassed an imposing collection. They were not selfish with this collection, frequently loaning parts of it out to interested galleries and museums. But in 1976 they struck a deal to donate 350 works to the city of Cologne, which in return would establish a Ludwig Museum.

A building was completed in 1986 to house the museum, but it was also used to display the collection of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, which consisted mostly of works created in centuries prior to the 20th (you’ll see more about this museum later). In 1994 Peter and Irene donated a further 90 works, from their Picasso collection, under the condition that the Wallraf-Richartz would be booted out to find a building of its own. Peter did not live to see how this played out, passing away in 1996, but a new place was found for Wallraf-Richartz, and in 2001 the Museum Ludwig reopened without a co-tenant. And in a fit of generosity, Irene donated another 774 Picasso works. Additional works were given to the museum a year after Irene’s death in 2010. While all this was going on, assorted purchases and donations from other parties were also taking place, bringing about the sizable collection that lives there now.

Finding the Ludwig Museum was a little tricky from the square south of the Cathedral, as it was necessary to go around the south end of the Römisch-Germanisches Museum. But it was pretty obvious once we got close, and we went in and paid our money. There were some works near the entrance that stylistically looked like things we’d seen before (in Paris and in the U.S.), for good reason – they were done by the same artists.

It didn’t take long to bump into the Picasso collection. With all the donations, Cologne has the third-largest Picasso collection in the world, after Paris and Barcelona. And not just paintings – Picasso worked in a number of media, including ceramics:

And of course there were a lot of paintings. Here are a few:


We continued through the museum, looking at the works on display.


We came across a group of German Expressionist works.



The movement known as the New Objectivity, a reaction to Expressionism, was also represented:



We came across a few more works from artists we’d heard of.

Having satisfied our thirst for 20th Century art, we now felt like looking at something older. It was time to visit the Cathedral.