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Ruin and Rush: Berlin 1910–1930

With the exhibition Ruin and Rush, the Neue Nationalgalerie focuses on selected works from its collection of Classical Modernism that address the Berlin of the 1910s and 1920s.

  • Otto Dix, Die Skatspieler, 1920, Detail

    Otto Dix, Die Skatspieler, 1920, Detail

    © Neue Nationalgalerie. Foto: Jörg P. Anders, VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2026

  • Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Potsdamer Platz, 1914, Detail

    Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Potsdamer Platz, 1914, Detail

    © Neue Nationalgalerie. Foto: Jörg P. Anders, © VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2026

  • Hannah Höch, Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser Dada durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauch-Kulturepoche Deutschlands, 1919, Detail

    Hannah Höch, Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser Dada durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauch-Kulturepoche Deutschlands, 1919, Detail

    © Neue Nationalgalerie. Foto: Jörg P. Anders, © VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2026

  • Oskar Nerlinger, Stadtbahn von Berlin, 1930, Detail

    Oskar Nerlinger, Stadtbahn von Berlin, 1930, Detail

    © Neue Nationalgalerie. Foto: Reinhard Saczewski, VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2026

  • Otto Nagel, Weddinger Jungen, 1928, Detail

    Otto Nagel, Weddinger Jungen, 1928, Detail

    © Neue Nationalgalerie. Foto: Andres Kilger, © VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2026

  • George Grosz, Grauer Tag, 1921, Detail

    George Grosz, Grauer Tag, 1921, Detail

    © Neue Nationalgalerie. Foto: Andres Kilger, © VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2026

  • Otto Dix, Bildnis der Tänzerin Anita Berber, 1925, Detail

    Otto Dix, Bildnis der Tänzerin Anita Berber, 1925, Detail

    © Sammlung Landesbank Baden-Württemberg im Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026 / Foto: Frank Kleinbach, Stuttgart

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These decades - marked by World War I and the Weimar Republic - constantly oscillated between extremes: excess and poverty, emancipation and extremism went hand in hand in the rapidly growing, cosmopolitan metropolis. With around 35 works of various styles, the exhibition brings to life the ambivalence of glamour and misery, rise and fall in Berlin at that time.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Berlin developed not only into an economic center but above all into a political and cultural center in the course of industrialization. With the founding of Greater Berlin in 1920, the population rose sharply to around 4 million people; Berlin became the third largest city in the world in terms of population after New York and London. In addition to numerous innovations in technology, construction, and transportation, social upheavals such as democratization and women's emancipation took place. The traumas of World War I, political unrest, and the rise of National Socialism overshadowed the “Golden Twenties.” Already mystified by contemporary voices as “Babylon,” the metropolis was in turmoil on many levels: freedom, consumption, and excess contrasted with growing poverty and unemployment.


The exhibition “Ruin and Rausch” (Ruin and Rush) in the collection floor of the Neue Nationalgalerie uses three sections to illustrate the contrasting aspects of urban life in Berlin between 1910 and 1930. It begins with the painting “Potsdamer Platz” by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who captured the fractured mood of the time in his work as early as 1914. After initially focusing on the dynamism of the growing metropolis in terms of architecture, traffic, and nightlife, the second part of the exhibition is devoted to the social misery and deprivation that dominated the everyday life of the population. The third chapter highlights different facets of urban women, revealing their desire for freedom, self-determination, and queer life. The exhibition concludes with Lotte Laserstein's melancholic work “Abend über Potsdam” (Evening over Potsdam) from 1930, which reflects the rise of National Socialism.

Artists featured in the exhibition “Ruin and Rush. Berlin 1910–1930” at the Neue Nationalgalerie

Josephine Baker, Anita Berber, Otto Dix, Heinrich Ehmsen, Paul Fuhrmann, George Grosz, Hans Grundig, Karl Hofer, Hannah Höch, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Georg Kolbe, Käthe Kollwitz, Fritz Lang, Lotte Laserstein, Tamara de Lempicka, Jeanne Mammen, Carlo Mense, Otto Nagel, Oskar Nerlinger, Ernest Neuschul, Walter Ruttmann, Renée Sintenis, Jakob Steinhardt, Georg Tappert, Lesser Ury, Thea von Harbou, Gustav Wunderwald

“Ruin and Rausch. Berlin 1910–1930” is curated by Uta Caspary and Irina Hiebert Grun, research assistants at the Neue Nationalgalerie, with curatorial assistance from Noor van Rooijen.

Runtime: Sat, 25/04/2026 to Sun, 03/01/2027

Price info: Ruin and Rush.

Price: €10.00

Reduced price: €5.00

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