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Museum Barberini 2027 exhibitions: Gaudí, Laurencin and Vallotton for the tenth anniversary

Potsdam's Museum Barberini opened on 20 January 2017. For its tenth year it has lined up four big shows, a research platform on Impressionism and a museum on wheels that drives to schools in Berlin and Brandenburg.

Claude Monet's painting of the Palazzo Contarini in Venice, a blue-violet palace facade above the rippling water of the Grand Canal
Claude Monet, Palazzo Contarini, 1908, Hasso Plattner Collection. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Museum Barberini in Potsdam turns ten on 20 January 2027, and it has now set out the whole anniversary year. The Museum Barberini's 2027 exhibitions are Catalan modernism from Gaudí to Picasso in spring, the first Marie Laurencin retrospective in Germany in 70 years in summer, and the Swiss painter Félix Vallotton from November. They follow the jubilee show The Impressionists. Monet, Morisot, Renoir and Their Network, which opened on 7 November 2026 and runs until 21 February 2027.

Two projects reach beyond the building: a research platform called Networks of Impressionism and the Barberini Mobil, which takes educators to schools in Brandenburg and Berlin from January 2027.

Ten years of the Barberini: how a rebuilt palace became an Impressionism address

The museum opened in January 2017 inside a reconstruction of Frederick the Great's Palais Barberini on the Alter Markt, paid for by SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner. According to the museum, more than three million people have visited since then. Plattner's collection of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting now numbers 115 works and has been on permanent display since 2020.

The current jubilee show is built on that collection. It tells ten stories, each starting from a Plattner painting and following the collectors, dealers and friends connected to it. Two of them lead to Berlin. Monet's Summer (1874) is on loan from the Alte Nationalgalerie. And the Jewish banker Jakob Goldschmidt, who showed Monet, Manet and Cézanne in his houses in Berlin and Neubabelsberg in the 1920s, was forced into exile by the Nazis; part of his collection was auctioned in Berlin in 1941. His Monet Palazzo Ducale was later returned to his heirs and is now in the Barberini's collection. Another story starts from Monet's Palazzo Contarini (1908, pictured), the Venetian home of the patron Winnaretta Singer, whose circle was also the subject of the museum's KlangFarben chamber concert in November 2026.

The Museum Barberini's 2027 exhibitions, in order

  • Barcelona moderna. From Gaudí to Picasso, 20 March – 20 June 2027. Catalan modernism between 1880 and 1914, with Gaudí and the young Picasso next to Ramon Casas, Santiago Rusiñol, Isidre Nonell and Joaquim Mir. Lenders include the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya and the Reina Sofía. The show is a cooperation with the Kunsthalle München, where it is already on view until 21 February 2027.
  • Marie Laurencin. Role Play, 24 July – 24 October 2027. More than 70 loans come from the Musée Marie Laurencin in Tokyo and are shown in Germany for the first time. Laurencin (1883–1956) moved in Apollinaire's and Picasso's Paris circle and designed for the Ballets Russes. Art in Words reports that the tour begins at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris in spring 2027, with Potsdam as its second stop.
  • Félix Vallotton. Longing and Seduction, 20 November 2027 – 20 February 2028. Paintings and woodcuts by the Lausanne-born member of the Nabis, with loans from Tate, the Musée d'Orsay, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Kunstmuseum Winterthur. It travels on to Ordrupgaard near Copenhagen in March 2028.

English titles are our translations of the German ones.

What it means for visitors from Berlin

The Barberini is about 40 minutes from central Berlin by S7 or RE1 to Potsdam Hauptbahnhof, and an ABC ticket covers the trip. Tickets cost 16 € on weekdays, 18 € at weekends and 10 € from 5.30pm. Under-18s go free, and under-25s get in free on Thursdays from 2pm, though you still need to book a free time slot online. Students go free until 30 November 2026.

For schools, the Barberini Mobil is the bigger news. The electric van and trailer, staffed by three educators, runs full project days for years 7 to 10 and is aimed at schools for which a trip to Potsdam is hard to organise. The October press release calls the offer free of charge, while the booking page lists a 50 € booking fee per project day. Teachers should check this before booking. Online information sessions start on 19 November.

Good to know

  • Anniversary: 20 January 2027 is a Wednesday. The museum has not announced a special event or free day for it so far.
  • Closed: Tuesdays.
  • Booking: time-slot tickets online. Opening-month weekends fill up fast.
  • Digital extras: a graphic novel written by Daniel Kehlmann (December 2026) and a chatbot at ask.museum-barberini.de are part of the anniversary programme.
  • Also celebrating: in Berlin, the Hamburger Bahnhof marks its 30th birthday with a free 30-hour opening on 14–15 November.

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