The art collection focuses on pieces of art dating back to the first half of the 20th century. It is not the artists‘ place of birth, which is relevant for the development of this particular field of the collection, but the aspect of their work in Silesia and/or their way to approach specific issues concerning the country and the people of Silesia or any related events.

Quite a large part of this collection represents paintings from the Sudeten Mountains created by artists who were looking for inspiration in the wild-romantic Sudeten Mountains and founded an artists’ association called St. Lukas in Schreiberhau (Szklarska Poreba) in 1922. There is also a comprehensive collection of works around the Breslau Academy of Arts and Crafts. This institution, founded in 1791 as a provincial art school, caused a supra-regional stir particularly in the 1920-ies. The basis of this collection was an extensive private collection, its acquisition at the beginning of the year 2002 was financed by the Federal Government. Due to this purchase, over 2.000 paintings, drawings, graphic prints and sculptures, created by teachers and students of the Breslau Academy, came to Görlitz. Apart from numerous names of rather little known artists, the collection displays representatives of the Avantgard here, such as Hans Poelzig, Otto Mueller, Georg Muche, Johannes Molzahn, Carlo Mense, Oskar Moll and Alexander Kanoldt, who all worked at the Breslau Academy, being part of a unique, pluralistic teaching concept.