Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th and 20th century art in Essen

Essen

- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patron Karl Ernst Osthaus

Karl Ernst Osthaus

Karl Ernst Osthaus was an important German patron of avant-garde art and architecture.In 1902, Osthaus founded the Folkwang Museum in Hagen, Germany...

 in Hagen

Hagen

Hagen is the 39th-largest city in Germany, located in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the eastern edge of the Ruhr area, 15 km south of Dortmund, where the rivers Lenne, Volme and Ennepe meet the river Ruhr...

, founded in 1901.

The term Folkwang derives from the name of the afterlife meadow of the dead, Fólkvangr

Fólkvangr

In Norse mythology, Fólkvangr is a meadow or field ruled over by the goddess Freyja where half of those that die in combat go upon death, while the other half go to the god Odin in Valhalla...

, presided over by the Norse

Norse mythology

Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...

 goddess Freyja.

Museum Folkwang incorporates the Deutsche Plakat Museum (German poster museum), whose circa 340 000 posters from politics, economy and culture. Paul J. Sachs

Paul J. Sachs

Paul Sachs was Harvard associate director of the Fogg Art Museum, a partner in the financial firm Goldman Sachs and the developer of one of the early museum studies courses in the United States.-History:...

 called it: "The most beautiful museum in the world".

In 2007, David Chipperfield

David Chipperfield

Sir David Alan Chipperfield CBE, RA, RDI, RIBA is a British architect, born in London. He has offices in London, Berlin and Milan, and a representative office in Shanghai...

designed an extension.