Museums

Art museums and history museums – both are well represented in the city of Wilhelm Lehmbruck and Gerhard Mercator. Paintings and sculptures by world-famous artists are on display in Duisburg, alongside exhibits that document the history of the city and its shipping heritage.

Art museums

History museums

Other museums

The Lehmbruck Museum is one of the 20th century’s most important sculpture establishments. When it opened in 1964, it was the first museum in NRW dedicated to one artist alone. Nowadays, besides focusing on the works of Wilhelm Lehmbruck, it also houses international sculptures of the modern age as well as paintings and sculptures from the German expressionism movement.

International artistic flair came to Duisburg’s Inner Harbour following the opening of the MKM Museum Küppersmühle of Modern Art. The list of renowned artists reads like a who’s who of Germany’s most important artists on the international stage: Darboven, Baselitz, Polke, Goetz, Immendorff, Lüpertz, Richter, Penck and many more besides.

Duisburg has a history dating back thousands of years. It is documented in the Kultur- und Stadthistorischen Museum, which is also located in the Inner Harbour. The collection featuring the creative work of cartographer Gerhard Mercator is also unique here.

It goes without saying that the history of inland shipping has earned a prominent position in the city with the world’s biggest inland port. The Museum der Deutschen Binnenschifffahrt presents its impressive exhibits in a former art nouveau swimming pool near the port.