Kupferstichkabinett, National Museums Berlin, Germany

The Kupferstichkabinett, or Museum of Prints and Drawings, is a prints museum in Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Berlin State Museums, and is located in the Kulturforum on Potsdamer Platz. It is the largest museum of graphic art in Germany, with more than 500,000 prints and around 110,000 individual works on paper (drawings, pastels, watercolours, oil sketches).

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The Kupferstichkabinett was officially founded in 1831, with a collection of drawings and watercolours acquired by Frederick William I in 1652 at its core. It grew throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, with the addition of Medieval, Renaissance and later works, including drawings by Albrecht Dürer and Matthias Grünewald, Sandro Botticelli's illustrations of Dante's Divine Comedy, and the estate of Adolph Menzel.

In 1986 the Kupferstichkabinett took over the graphics collection of the National Gallery of Berlin, whose emphasis was on 20th-century prints, including Expressionist works that the Nazis had classified as "degenerate" and confiscated. In 1994 it opened in a new building in the Kulturforum, reuniting the parts of the collection that had been split between East and West Berlin together with the National Gallery's collection.

The emphasis is on European drawings and printed graphics from the Middle Ages to the present, as well as illuminated manuscripts, sketchbooks, topographical drawings and printing plates. The older artists include Dürer, Grünewald, Botticelli and Menzel, as well as Altdorfer, Bosch, Bruegel, Chodowiecki, Friedrich, Mantegna, Rembrandt, Schinkel, and Tiepolo. More recent artists include Kirchner, Munch and Picasso, Pop Artists (Warhol, Hamilton, Johns, Stella) conceptual artists, minimalists, and contemporary artists working in Berlin.

Some of the works on paper are stored in other Berlin collections that have a relevant theme, such as the Ethnological and Asian Art Museums, the Art Library, and the Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection. The works in the Kupferstichkabinett cannot be permanently displayed, due to the size of the collection and the air- and light-sensitivity of works on paper; however, the museum holds regular temporary exhibitions.

The Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings) is home to a universe of 'art on paper,' with masterpieces by Sandro Botticelli, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Adolph Menzel, and Vincent van Gogh, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Pablo Picasso, and – more recently – Andy Warhol and Gerhard Richter. With its wealth of treasures, it is a central place for European artistic ideas, images, and forms of expression, as well as for those of world cultures linked to Europe through cultural and historical ties. It contains works from 1000 years of the history of art, culture, and the media, ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day. The museum’s collection comprises a staggering 550,000 prints and some 110,000 drawings, watercolours, pastels, and oil sketches. The Kupferstichkabinett collects European drawings and prints and, more recently, international works of art on paper. The museum also contains illuminated manuscripts (hand-written texts adorned with exquisite miniatures) dating from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, books with original graphic art, special portfolios, sketch books, topographical views and printing plates.

As a museum of the graphic arts, the Kupferstichkabinett is the collection, excellence, and exhibition centre for all draughtsmanship and printmaking, manuscript illumination, and artistic book illustration at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The Kupferstichkabinett is the largest collection of art in the graphic medium in Germany and is one of the four most important museums of its kind worldwide.
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