“I think what happened was that the artworks in my photographs became a little bit more contemporary and the visitors were pushed back into history, because once I’ve photographed them, the moment has of course already passed. It created this double reflection of consciousness.”
-Thomas Struth

Between 1989-1990 Thomas Struth created his first Museum series, a now iconic body of work. As a highly observant image maker, Struth captured visitors in dialogue with renowned works of art, artifacts, and architecture, at five of the most prestigious institutions across the globe; The Art Institute of Chicago; the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; The Louvre, Paris; The National Gallery, London; and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In the mid-1990s, as a continuation of the series, Thomas Struth visited the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, but ultimately was dissatisfied with the pictures taken. He returned to the Pergamon a second time in 2001 and, in contrast with the first Museum pictures, positioned the visitors within the gallery to achieve the composition he initially envisioned. The result, as visible in Pergamon Museum IV, Berlin, is an exceptionally balanced interweaving of both visitor and object within the museum context, and the narrative that unfolds.

The present lot is one of only a few examples from Thomas Struth’s Museum series where he positioned the visitors, with the only other examples being the pictures taken at the Pantheon in Rome.