Museum Franz Gertsch — Attraction in Burgdorf

Call me crazy, when I go to a museum called Vincent Van Gogh I expect to see sunflowers. Therefore, when I visit a museum called Franz Gersch I expect to see hyperrealistic portraits.

This is not my experience. Only one room holds art by the artist that names the museum and, at the moment of my visit, not a single one of the pieces was representative of the art that made the artist famous. You can see the whole collection in about 15 minutes.

As you enter the museum, you go through the shop, where you can see his famous works on posters for sale. This creates unrealistic expectations. This is not what you are going to find.

What I saw was a bunch of pieces belonging to his late years, all of them fitting in one room. The rest of the building holds some exhibitions that have nothing to do with Franz Gersch's work.

When I complained, they told me that I should have visited the website, where the information about the exhibitions is clear. So you name a museum with the name of an artist and you expect me that I go to the website to be sure if I am going to find representative art made by this artist. So it is my fault that I paid the ticket before checking that important detail.

I could have understood this as a misunderstanding if they just returned the money I had paid. After all, the museum is the same after I left, nothing was wasted or used. But they refused because they say that they do not lie since the information is on the website.

No wonder my family and I were the only visitors the museum had during the short time we spent seeing the exhibitions and the long time I wasted telling the management that I was aware that I was ripped off. If that was not the case, they could have taken some actions to show their good intentions, such as giving the money back or, at least ask TripAdvisor to change the picture so no more unwary people go. This happened two months ago, they have had plenty of time to do so.

And one more detail to make the experience even more unpleasant: they tried to overcharge me because they did not apply a discount for families. I think that was an honest mistake, but you never know. Tip: Check the price list, as well as the website, before you pay.

This is their official answer, so you can judge by yourself if you would pay for the ticket if you knew this:

'First of all we thank you for your visit as tourists in our area of Burgdorf and the visit to our museum. Of course we feel sorry that you are disappointed about your visit to the museum.

Franz Gertsch has started 1969 with the photorealistic painting and did until today about 90 hugh formated works. All the works fo the 1970ies and 1980ies you are refering to are mainly shown in different museums and collections in Germany. But you will never find more than 5 paintings of him in the same museum.

As we clearly state on our website our collection consists of the paintaings and woodcuts starting in the 1990ies. There, we have the biggest collection of Franz Gertsch works from his late age period, starting with 70 years.

To make our museum successful, we need to do changing exhibitons as like this current one with the famous German photographer Axel Hütte.

As you may have seen we are expanding our museum at the moment. With the opening in spring 2019 we will have in the future always 3 to 4 rooms with works of Franz Gertsch. If you came again in July 2019 you will see our whole collection.

If you like to see about 15 paintings of the 1970ies and 1980ies works of Franz Gertsch, we recommend you to visit in autumn 2020 the large exhibition of Franz Gertsch in the...

We made the trip to an amazing collection and video about how Franz Gertsch approached his work as a painter. He was called a hyper realist using fotography instead of sketches for his larger than life motives. One room is dedicated to the “Four seasons” painted in super large format from fotographs he took! A separate room showed a well made documentary about the artist, his wife and scenes while he was painting the “ four seasons” Awesome insights! Amazing architecture! Only minutes away from the main station. My favourite place to...

... a very nice place for art and despite the single artist space, a wide range of art is shown and described. The rooms are built for the art... that's not a given, as you can see in Bilbao, etc. Unfortunately, 20 years ago there were probably no disabled people interested in art... In any case, they are not included, e.g. have not proper access to all rooms. Anyway, the employees were kind enough to transport them with the goods lift...