Albertinum, museum in Dresden, Germany, displaying fine art and national treasures. It is one of several institutions associated with the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections).
The Albertinum, named for King Albert of Saxony, was built on the foundations of a former armoury by Karl Adolf Canzler, who completed construction in 1887. The building was destroyed in World War II but reopened in 1953. The Albertinum is one of several historical buildings occupying Dresden’s famous Kultur Quartier (“Cultural District”); other notable buildings include the Semper Opera House, the Royal Palace, and Dresden’s reconstructed Baroque cathedral, the Frauenkirche.
The museum is home to two of the state collections: the Skulpturensammlung (“Sculpture Collection”) and the Galerie Neue Meister (“New Masters Gallery”). The Skulpturensammlung includes works from ancient Greece and Rome, as well as European carvings from antiquity to the present. A wing of the collection is devoted to Renaissance and Baroque works, and there are also Late Saxon wood carvings. The celebrated Galerie Neue Meister, which contains art from the 19th to the 21st century, has one of Germany’s most significant collections of modern and contemporary art. Works include German and other European masterpieces dating from the Renaissance to the present. The collection highlights German artists from the Romantic and Impressionist periods, as well as works by Die Brücke (“The Bridge”), a collective of early 20th-century Dresden-based Expressionists. Major works by postwar and contemporary artists are also featured. One of the museum’s stated curatorial goals is creating a vibrant conversation between old and new.
Renovation of the building began in 2006 to create a workshop, depository, and storage facility. The museum reopened in 2010.