Initiated in 1950 with a donation by Oetker and gradually expanded from 1954 with municipal acquisitions, the collection focuses on
Expressionism, international sculpture, and contemporary art. The permanent collection features a wide array of 20th-century art, including paintings by
Pablo Picasso and
Max Beckmann, works by the
Blaue Reiter group and movements centred on
László Moholy-Nagy and
Oskar Schlemmer, and more recent art from the 1970s and '80s. The museum stands in a
sculpture garden featuring works by
Auguste Rodin,
Henry Moore,
Richard Serra,
Thomas Schütte,
Ólafur Elíasson and other modern sculptors. At the 50th
Venice Biennale in 2003, the Kunsthalle presented the documentary "Ilya und Emila Kabakov: Die Utopische Stadt. 1997-2003", which was on permanent display in the "Utopia Station Now!". As part of its series of exhibitions of important museum collections of twentieth- and twenty-first-century art, the
Bundeskunsthalle Bonn presented »The Unknown Bielefeld Collection« in 2011. The Kunsthalle also hosts temporary exhibitions to complement the permanent collection. Recent examples have been devoted to
Emil Nolde,
Rirkrit Tiravanija, and the locally born artist
Peter August Böckstiegel together with
Conrad Felixmüller. The 1991 exhibition "Picasso's Surrealism: 1925–1937", one of five internationally renowned Picasso exhibitions in 1984, 1988, 1993, and 2011, attracted 67,000 visitors; an exhibition in 2007–08, featuring art from 1937 in a variety of styles, had 47,000. The museum also offers guided tours, teaching activities for children, and a library. ==Architecture==