Munich's Museum Villa Stuck, dedicated to one of Europe's most important Symbolist painters Franz von Stuck, will reopen on October 18 following an extensive €13.5 million ($14.6 million) renovation. The museum, housed in the artist's own extravagant villa built between 1897 and 1915, serves as both a showcase for Stuck's diverse talents and a venue for contemporary art exhibitions.
In the decades leading up to World War I, Munich was renowned for its "painter princes" – an elite group of artists who established themselves in grand mansions while creating wildly popular salon paintings, mythological scenes, and portraits of high society figures. Franz von Stuck was the last of these great artist-aristocrats, working not only as a painter but also as a sculptor, architect, and designer. His masterpiece was his own home, Villa Stuck, an extravagant and eccentric showplace that represented his concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art.
The villa's journey from private residence to museum reflects Munich's turbulent 20th-century history. After suffering damage during World War II, the property was donated to the city of Munich and eventually transformed into a museum in the early 1990s. The Museum Villa Stuck has since operated with a dual mission: presenting Stuck's multifaceted artistic legacy while hosting special exhibitions featuring cutting-edge contemporary artists.
The year-and-a-half-long renovation project focused on updating and upgrading the building's infrastructure, including its security systems, while simultaneously restoring the facade and renewing the museum's historic rooms. The adjoining music and reception salons have been returned to their former glory, featuring sumptuous decorative elements including elaborate flooring and Pompeii-inspired wall paintings created by Stuck himself. Thanks to careful conservation work and the dramatic addition of new silk curtains that serve as room dividers, the overall atmosphere is now much brighter and more theatrical.
"The new vermillion-red color of these curtains plays off several other elements in the salons, including the restored Italian Baroque painting hanging nearby," explains Margot Th. Brandlhuber, the museum's head of collections. The museum's display of Stuck's paintings has also been completely reconfigured, featuring fresh exhibits including a recently donated work, "Portrait of a Woman from Mainz" (1914), which still retains its original artist-designed frame with swirling relief that suggests loose brushstrokes.
Franz von Stuck, who came from humble Bavarian origins and added the noble "von" to his name when he was in his 40s, first gained recognition as a graphic artist. While still in his 20s, he began earning substantial sums for mythological and religious paintings that German art publishers could reproduce and sell in various formats, including black-and-white prints. "The artist had a strong instinct for marketing," notes Brandlhuber, highlighting Stuck's business acumen alongside his artistic talents.
Today, Stuck is best remembered for co-founding the Munich Secession in 1892, an association that helped introduce avant-garde art throughout Central Europe, and for his masterpiece "The Sin." This iconic Symbolist painting depicts a swooning Eve enveloped by a demonic serpent. While the motif dates to the early 1890s, it exists in several versions. The Villa Stuck's version, created before 1906, is enshrined in a marble altar designed by the artist himself, which has been carefully conserved as part of the restoration. A collection of sculptures from antiquity and works by Stuck surround this centerpiece painting.
The villa will celebrate its reopening with "A Song of Ascents," a contemporary art exhibition that marks the first museum show dedicated to young Manchester-based artist Louise Giovanelli. The exhibition, which was previously held at the UK's Hepworth Wakefield earlier this year, makes innovative use of the villa's newly refurbished historic spaces, including the room housing the famous Sin altar, creating a dialogue between Stuck's Symbolist legacy and contemporary artistic expression.
