Museum Giersch of Goethe University

About this place

Museum Giersch is one of the smaller and least-known houses on the Museumsufer, occupying a Wilhelmine villa on the south bank of the river. The Giersch Foundation set it up in two thousand, and since twenty fifteen it has belonged to Goethe University Frankfurt, which is why its full name now includes the university and why it works as part of the university's academic life. It shows no permanent collection. Everything is a changing exhibition, and its founding subject is the art and cultural history of the Rhine-Main region, meaning the painters and makers who worked in and around Frankfurt without ever entering the big national story. In recent years the programme has widened into contemporary subjects that tie art to the sciences, which makes sense for a museum a university runs. In practice that means the value of a visit depends entirely on what happens to be hanging when you are there, and there is nothing fixed to fall back on. The museum shuts between exhibitions while the rooms are rehung, sometimes for weeks, so check the website before crossing the city. The ticket is seven euros, which is cheap by Frankfurt standards, and it opens ten to six with a late Thursday until eight and closed Mondays. Give it an hour and pair it with a neighbour on the same embankment.