Peter und Irene Ludwig Stiftung
Publication: Irene and Peter Ludwig. Insights into the Collectors’ International Activities. Regina Wyrwoll in Conversation with Contemporary Witnesses.
The book is plublished by the Walther und Franz König bookshop.
Driven by the idea of putting a panorama of global art on display, from 1970 onwards Peter and Irene Ludwig were instrumental in the establishment of museums and foundations in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Russia, Cuba, and China.
In interviews with Regina Wyrwoll, fourteen contemporaries provide first-hand accounts of how the Ludwigs succeeded, despite all challenges, in compiling their international collection of 14,000 works of art and bringing it from Germany’s Aachen to the world. They take us on a journey to differing countries and regions, a journey through various perspectives and insights, through diverse experiences, anecdotes, and memories. Together, they bring the work of Irene and Peter Ludwig to life, helping to lend it clarity.
Introductory texts offering contextual information, documents and photographs from the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation archive—some published for the first time—and a timeline of their founding of institutions complete the publication. The publication thus contributes to an important chapter in global art history since the 1970s.
Publication: 303 pages with numerous illustrations in German and English. ISBN: 978-3-7533-0379-6. Edited by: Carla Cugini and Benjamin Dodenhoff, Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation. Texts by: Carla Cugini, Benjamin Dodenhoff, Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen, Regina Wyrwoll. Available in bookshops.
Anniversary: Twenty-five Years of the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation
Twenty-five years ago, in 1997, Irene Ludwig set an important precedent in philanthropic support for art and culture in the public sphere by establishing the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation.
The foundation would continue to pursue the vision that Irene Ludwig shared with her late husband: to acquire first-rate works of fine and applied art for the public in collaboration with international museums, with a cosmopolitan, global perspective across all eras, genres, and borders, and to support exhibitions of and research on these works.
Today the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation works with over twenty-five public institutions across three continents and has supported a large number of multifaceted projects and initiatives.
Peter and Irene Ludwig
The two German art collectors have changed the world. They began building their collection, comprising more than 14,000 objects, in the 1950s. Today, the collection is spread across 26 public museums in three continents. Twelve institutions bear the name Ludwig and have benefited from generous donations. Their perspective on art as a unique principle of human expression that overcomes national borders and is open to the world, motivated the founders and continues to define the activity of the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation.
History
Irene Monheim and Peter Ludwig get to know one another at the end of the 1940s while studying art history at Mainz University. Peter Ludwig completes his PhD there in 1950 with a thesis on Picasso’s image of man.
Research
The Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation is continuously researching, organizing, and expanding the Ludwig Collection. With the “Ludwig Project”, since 2015 an interview campaign is gathering the views and impressions of contemporaries.
