Berlin, closes Verborgene Museum, the museum of forgotten and unknown female artists

After more than thirty-five years, the Verborgene Museum in Berlin closed its doors on January 1, 2022. Since 1986 it had been located on Schlüterstrasse at number 70 in the Charlottenburg district, devoting itself to the research of forgotten women artists. Now the website is still available to provide the opportunity to continue to publicize developments in that research, but the museum has moved its operations to the Berlinische Galerie - Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district.

Founded in Berlin of 1986, the Verborgene Museum was anonprofit association that received support from the program for women artists sponsored by the Berlin Senate for Science, Research and Culture. It was the result of asurvey of the city’smuseums from 1984 to 1987, in the course of which works and collections of more than five hundred women artists had been discovered in the archives, only a small proportion of whom are known. The museum’s goal was thus to make known to all the biography and art of female artists who had fallen into oblivion for a variety of reasons, devoting itself with such passion to the public presentation and academic evaluation of women artists of past centuries or those no longer working in the art world.

Among these forgotten women artists are painters, photographers, sculptors, and architects who mainly belong to the generation born around thebeginning of the 20th century.

Over the past three decades, the museum has drawn the public’s attention to about one hundred works by women artists through exhibitions and publications, laying the groundwork for their inclusion in academia and the art market with specialized publications. it has also developed a network with museums, archives, universities, gallery owners, and art world personalities, thanks to which forgotten legacies have sometimes emerged.

The cause of its closure in the Charlottenburg district is a reduced staff for both funding and retirement reasons, as the founders are retiring. “It is very difficult to get funding to work on unknown artists; it is much easier if you work on Picasso,” commented Marion Beckers, co-founder and curator of the Verborgene Museum. “We often gave the impetus by passing the baton on to others,” she added.

Now the Berlinische Galerie - Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur said it wants to continue discovery and research on women artists, institutionalize the collection in a museum, and continue archival work to increase it.

Berlin, closes Verborgene Museum, the museum of forgotten and unknown female artists

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