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The first major special exhibition to be held in  the new building of Folkwang Museum is devoted to the unique Folkwang  Collection and its history. The focus here is on the reconstruction of  the collection, which was founded by Karl Ernst Osthaus in 1902,  transferred to Essen shortly after his untimely death in 1921 and  subsequently developed by Ernst Gosebruch into an institution with a  worldwide reputation.

This success story was described with incomparable simplicity by  the co-founder of the New York Museum of Modern Art Paul J. Sachs during a visit to Essen in 1932 when he stated that the "Folkwang Museum" was  the "most beautiful museum in the world".

A short time later the Nazis put a brutal halt to the progressive  purchasing and exhibition policies of the museum and in 1937 confiscated more than 1400 works, which were subsequently legally sold and now form some of the great masterpieces in international museums and private  collections, including paintings by Kandinsky, Matisse, Kirchner, Marc,  Munch and Beckmann.

Sachs' words have now been used as the title of a special exhibition - and describe a concept that for the first time brings an old treasure  of the museum back into the spotlight. As in the time of Osthaus, the  masters of modern art now stand next to sculptures and objects from  China, Japan, Greece, Egypt, Java and Oceania. The exhibition  reconstructs this great collection for a period of four months and makes it an inspiring starting point for the future work of the museum.