The master of the Pinakothek museums

The headlines of the newspapers heralded ‘Hamburg meets Munich’ in March 2009 when Klaus Schrenk took over the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Bavarian State Painting Collections) and thus the responsibility for an enormous empire: over 30,000 works are held in the collections of sixteen museums and branches, including the three Pinakothek museums in Munich, the Sammlung Schack, the Staatsgalerie Altdeutscher Meister in Augsburg and the Museum Brandhorst – all museums and collections of excellent standing.

As did his predecessor who, during his day, inaugurated the Pinakothek der Moderne, Schrenk also had the great luck of having the opportunity to also inaugurate a new museum: in May 2009 he opened the Museum Brandhorst, a superb collection of contemporary art that has greatly supplemented the holdings of the Pinakothek der Moderne.

Klaus Schrenk’s career began 32 years ago in Düsseldorf after having completed courses of study in Hamburg, Berlin, Paris and Marburg. For seven years, from 1979 to 1986, he headed the Düsseldorf Kunsthalle before moving on to Bonn Kunstmuseum in 1995 and then to the Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe: museums that didn’t exactly top the charts of entertainment-obsessed art centers for demanding visitors, but were nevertheless professionally much sought-after addresses.

He’s anyway not a man for event exhibitions, Schrenk emphasizes. The transformation of museums to the wellness oases of the art community is something he looks at with skepticism, but which doesn't mean that he hasn’t organized his share of blockbusters. His Matthias Grünewald exhibition, which he presented in 2007/2008 in cooperation with the Musée d’Unterlinden in Colmar, was an absolute hit.

In contrast to his eloquent predecessor Reinhold Baumstark, the man from Hamburg speaks softly, is a bit stiff in public and seems almost a bit shy when together with the artworks and artists. The inner circle though has always recognized him as an outstanding scientist and one of the leading art historians in Germany – and as someone who has topped the list of candidates for Munich since 1999. Now he is here in Munich and, if it is up to him, artlovers will also soon have the opportunity to roam the galleries of Munich’s Pinakothek museums virtually, as Schrenk isn’t one of those curators who jealously guard the works in their museum, protecting the paintings from greedy, snobbish or voyeuristic eyes. On the contrary: Schrenk wants to make information and history readily available for a young audience. And perhaps one day – as in the Prado – the tears of the Madonna or Dürer’s dark locks will be viewable in sharp detail on a monitor.