The Hohenzollern Bridge carries the main railway and foot passengers across the Rhine in the centre of Cologne in Germany. Looking across the river the panorama includes the bridge, the railway station and the magnificent gothic cathedral. Nestled in the middle of this group of great buildings is the Museum Ludwig. 

It is home to the collections of Josef Haubrich, of European art between the wars and that of Peter and Linda Ludwig’s avant-garde Russian Art and Pop Art. The Ludwigs’ collection was originally on loan but in 1976 they bequeathed it to the city provided a new museum was built to house it. The current building was designed by  Peter Bussman and Godfrid Haberer and opened to the public in 1986. The building also houses the important medieval collection of Wallraf-Ricartz in a separate museum.

The Museum Ludwig is set out on two distinct floors. The first floor contains its vast collection of pop art. There are works by Warhol, Lichtenstein and Jasper John but over about ten rooms is a huge array of this art movement, primarily of Britain and the United States. While many have seen pictures of Warhol’s soup can boxes there is something special about standing in front of the display, which of course is to be found in various designs. I particularly liked Roy Lichtenstein’s three views of Rouen cathedral – a nod to Claude Monet’s numerous paintings of the same building in different lights. 

The second floor is dedicated to Modern Art, of the twentieth century. As I walked around taking in works by the expressionists, surrealists, cubists, constructivists etc I found myself thinking back to my Modern Art module at Oxford University nearly ten years ago. Whilst there is a very good collection in the Tate and Tate Modern, this floor at The Ludwig was like browsing through a text book, but with the works in front of me. All the names from the canon of modern art are here, including one of the largest collection of Picasso’s works in the world. 

Picasso met Sylvette David in Vallauris, in the South of France in 1954. He painted her many times including a portrait of her with a high pony tail, later to be adopted famously by Bridgette Bardot. This was known as Picasso’s ‘Ponytail Period’. Sylvette became Lydia Corbett, an artist in her own right, now living in Devon in England. We have one of her water colours on our wall at home. On the wall at the Ludwig Museum is an exquisite portrait by Picasso, Head of a Woman Reading, from 1953 which, to me says he was aware of Sylvette before 1954, or he had already formulated the design a year earlier. 

There is also an extensive section on cubism with works by Braques and Picasso and on surrealism, focussing on the works of Max Ernst, some of which are overtly political. I have chosen a quieter subject of Spring Time in Paris. 

The two collections are illuminating, educational and thoroughly enjoyable visually. Like most people I have been through Cologne seveal times in the past on my way somewhere else. If I visit this great city again the Ludwig Museum will be  the first ‘go to’ trip.