The Collection Viktor and Marianne

The foundation stone for the Langen Foundation's house is the Collection Viktor and Marianne Langen, which has its origins in the 1950s and today comprises around five hundred works of Japanese art and roughly three hundred works of modern Western Art.

The Japanese Collection
Viktor Langen made business trips to Japan since the early 1960s. Fascinated by all highly developed civilizations, he was infected with a love for Japanese art. As an experienced and passionate art collector, with good contacts and an interpreter, he sought out and found the few dealers and gallery owners for Japanese art in Japan.
A collection arose which is unique in Europe for its size and quality and is representative for Japanese art from the 12th to the 19th century. The collection includes scrolls, screens and sculptures.

A first comprehensive exhibition of the Japanese collection took place in 1998/99 under the title Autumn Wind in the Pines at the Museum for East Asian Art in Cologne. The exhibition was subsequently to be seen at the Kunsthalle Tübingen, the Museum for Art and Design in Hamburg and in various museums in Japan.

The Western Modern Art collection
The collection “20th century painting” (Viktor Langen) comprises works from almost all the important and famous artists from the last century. The strategy pursued by the collector couple was simple and clear. They wanted "to collect today's works" (Viktor Langen) and works that spontaneously impressed them. In this sense they concentrated at first on the expressionists, who fascinated Viktor Langen already when he was a schoolboy.
At the beginning of today's collection there is a Jawlensky which the Langen couple acquired from the Cologne gallery owner, Rusche, and an oil sketch by Fernand Léger which they discovered at the Düsseldorf Kunstverein. They were followed by works by Paul Klee Mark Tobey, Alex Colville, Max Ernst, Salvador, Piet Mondrian, Francis Bacon, Emilio Vedova, Fernando Botero, Domenico Gnoli, Jean Dubuffet and — so to speak, looking back — Pablo Picasso and Paul Cézanne.

In its present form, the Collection Langen is regarded as complete. With the opening of the Langen Foundation, the family is taking on the legacy of Viktor and Marianne Langen.