The Foundation Frieder Burda

The Foundation Frieder Burda was established on April 20, 1998. It is a foundation under civil law with legal capacity.

The foundation's purpose is to promote art, culture, and science. This goal has been and continues to be achieved primarily through the establishment and operation of a museum of modern art, where the art collection of the founder, Frieder Burda, is made accessible to the public. The Frieder Burda Museum was built on Lichtentaler Allee in Baden-Baden according to plans by New York architect Richard Meier. It opened on October 22, 2004.

The Frieder Burda Museum is located right next to the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden and is connected to it by a glass bridge. In a way that is unique in Europe to date, a state-run cultural institution and private art patronage complement one another here. The establishment of the Frieder Burda Foundation made it possible to make Frieder Burda's internationally renowned art collection permanently accessible to the public. The Frieder Burda Collection comprises approximately 1,000 works of classical modernism and contemporary art.

The foundation is independent and pursues exclusively and directly charitable purposes.

Founder: Frieder Burda
Foundation Supervisory Authority: Karlsruhe Regional Council
Foundation Board: Elke Burda, Dominic Kamp, Florian Trott (Executive Manager), Dr. Daniel Zamani.
Address: Lichtentaler Allee 74, 76530 Baden-Baden

Frieder Burda

In Memory of Frieder Burda
29 APRIL 1936 – 14 JULY 2019

Frieder Burda was a collector driven by passion, and a founder and patron guided by an extraordinary vision. Through the establishment of his foundation and museum, he looked far beyond his own lifetime, creating a permanent home for his collection and a place at which art could inspire generations to come.

Although he created an institution of international significance, he himself preferred to remain out of the spotlight. Modesty, generosity, and genuine warmth defined his relationships with artists, friends, and colleagues alike. His desire to share—his knowledge, his experience and, above all, his passion for art—was at the heart of who he was.

We will never forget Frieder Burda.

Elke Burda & Family<br/>The Team of the Museum Frieder Burda

Art brings joy and color to life.
The best part is being able to share this joy with others at the museum.

– Frieder Burda

Biography

Frieder Burda was born on April 29, 1936, in Gengenbach, Baden-Württemberg, the son of a well-known German media-entrepreneur family. Together with his older brother Franz, who has since passed away, and his younger brother Hubert, he grew up in Offenburg. After finishing school, including time in Switzerland, he completed an apprenticeship in printing and publishing. In his father's company, he trained as a businessman. This was followed by extended stays abroad in France, England, and the United States before he took over a printing company in Darmstadt. He developed the business into one of Europe's leading commercial printing companies.

From 1973, Frieder Burda worked in various departments of his parents’ magazine publishing house at its headquarters in Offenburg, where he was responsible for finance, administration, and investments. However, Frieder Burda found his true life’s work in art. In 1968, in his early 30s, he purchased a painting by the artist Lucio Fontana that he had seen at documenta in Kassel, laying the foundation for his high-caliber art collection. Today, the collection comprises around 1,000 works, including many masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Max Beckmann, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko, as well as Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz, and Sigmar Polke. This first acquisition sparked a great passion and led to a deep knowledge of contemporary art. In doing so, he deliberately distinguished himself from his father’s collecting activities, which were focused on German Expressionism.

Museum Frieder Burda – A Lifetime's Work

To preserve the collection and make it accessible to the public, the Frieder Burda Foundation was established in 1998—after efforts to establish it in Mougins in southern France were abandoned. It laid the foundation for the museum building designed by American star architect Richard Meier, which since 2004 has presented the Frieder Burda Collection in Baden-Baden in dialogue with other international masterpieces: a radiant white standalone building on the historic Lichtentaler Allee, now often referred to as the “Jewel in the Park”.

Numerous high-profile exhibitions have been held there since then, featuring artists such as Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Katharina Grosse, William N. Copley, Andreas Gursky, and James Turrell. These were complemented by thematic exhibitions such as “The Pictures Move Me” and “America! America!”. The dedicated and in-depth outreach of art with a social mission through the museum's art workshop was always a matter close to the heart of Frieder Burda, an honorary citizen of the city of Baden-Baden. In 2014, the museum celebrated its tenth anniversary with two major retrospective exhibitions titled “40I10.” To mark its 15th anniversary in 2019, the museum presented the exhibition “Ensemble,” which celebrated Franco-German friendship through the interplay with masterpieces from the collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. In early 2019, the museum had caused a sensation with a Banksy exhibition. With the Salon Berlin, directed by Frieder Burda's daughter Patricia Kamp, the museum built a bridge to contemporary art.

Frieder Burda was always open to new inspiration and engaging with it. At the same time, he always remained true to himself in his belief in the unifying power of art. For the exhibition “Ensemble”, the passionate Francophile wrote in the catalogue: “The reflection of the two collections, the juxtaposition of individual works by German and French artists, shows just how much art connects, positively influences and complements one another across borders. This makes me happy and strengthens my belief in the universal, unifying nature of art, its validity and its endurance through every crisis.” On July 14, 2019, France's national holiday, Frieder Burda died in Baden-Baden surrounded by his family.

His faith in the reconciling power of art remained unbroken, his fascination with the stirring power of color absolute: In Frieder Burda, the art world has lost one of its great collectors—a man who always sought to share his love and enthusiasm for art with as many people as possible. Humanistic values were always more important to him than material ones; for him, owning art always carried the obligation to make it accessible.

As a friend to artists, Frieder Burda sought dialogue about the origins of art, direct and inspiring contact with the creators. As a patron and museum founder, he generously gifted his hometown with a building that continues to draw people from around the world to Baden-Baden. As chairman of his foundation, he was always a model of modesty and humanity to his staff. And as a private individual, side by side with his wife Elke, he succeeded in bringing family and friends together time and again in the spirit of art.