Two eras, one common fascination: the unconscious, the fantastic and the power of the imagination. From 13 June to 12 October 2025, key masterpieces of international Surrealism and German Romanticism - including world-famous icons from Salvador Dalí to Caspar David Friedrich - as well as top-class loans, some of which have never been shown before, will come together in the Hamburger Kunsthalle's major special exhibition.
Fascinating proximity: Surrealism and German Romanticism
To mark the 100th anniversary of Surrealism, the Hamburger Kunsthalle's ‘Rendezvous of Dreams’ invites visitors to discover the diversity of Surrealist art - in an exciting dialogue with German Romanticism. Surrealism seeks access to the unconscious - to the dream world behind visible reality. German Romanticism explores feeling, the mysterious and nature - as an antithesis to pure reason. Their spiritual affinity can be experienced in the exhibition and shows how Romanticism helped to shape the art of the 20th century.
Icons of surrealism and major works of romanticism
This summer, the Hamburger Kunsthalle is bringing together over 180 icons of Surrealism such as Max Ernst, Meret Oppenheim, René Magritte, Salvador Dalí and Paul Klee with over 60 major works of German Romanticism, including paintings by Caspar David Friedrich and Philipp Otto Runge as well as texts by Novalis, Bettina von Arnim and Hölderlin.
On display are paintings, drawings, films, photographs, sculptures, literature and objects. High-calibre loans, some of which have never been shown before, come from international museums and private collections - including from Mexico, the USA and all over Europe, for example from renowned institutions such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Tate in London, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and many more.
Welcome back, ‘Wanderer above the sea of fog’
Caspar David Friedrich's painting ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’ (c. 1818), which is in the possession of the Hamburger Kunsthalle - and will finally be on display here again with this special exhibition - is considered a symbol of German Romanticism. From February to May 2025, the internationally renowned work was on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as part of Friedrich's first major retrospective in the USA. Now the great star is returning across the Atlantic - and back home.
