Besides housing one the most important German art pieces of the 20th century (I am referring to Otto Dix’s Großstadt, of course), Stuttgart’s Kunstmuseum also has one of the best art bookstores I’ve been to in my life. According to the museum, they have been able to win the nationally renowned bookseller, Fachbuchhandlung Walther König, for its museum shop.
This bookseller specializes in museums and here in Stuttgart it offers (I am quoting the museum’s web page) “a large selection of titles on the museum’s collection, art historical scholarship from the Middle Ages to the present, aesthetic theory, photography, architecture, and design”, as well as all current international exhibition catalogues, art-educational children’s books and a plethora of art postcards, reproductions, and posters.
I always spend at least half an hour here, just because the display is always changing, and the choice of books is nonconventional and exactly to my taste. There are always some English books to be found among the German editions. The main topics are painting, sculpture, photography, music, film industry and fashion. The shop has a good choice of classic art theory books like Gombrich or Berger as well as some newer reading pleasures like the comparatively recent de Botton. The prices are reasonable, and they often have nice discounts for albums with reproductions. My recent purchase is the new Lauren Elkin on women and walking in the cities:)
Entrance to the shop is via the museum foyer as well as via Fürstenstraße. They are open Mon – Thurs 10 a.m. – 8 p.m., Fri 10 a.m. – 9 p.m., Sat and Sun 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
