Art Museum Mülheim Artists with links to Mülheim received special attention from the city museum early on with its origins in the private collection of Mülheim citizen Robert Rheinen. Today, these artists are regularly exhibited and are highly sought after by collectors. Among the most well known are those closely linked to the  "Junges Rheinland" (Young Rhineland) group – Arthur Kaufmann and Otto Pankok as well as the Bauhaus student Werner Gilles.

Acquisitions and exhibitions by contemporaries such as Karl Hofer and Emil Nolde in the 1920s formed the foundation for this collection of modern art. The museum suffered huge losses in the World War II and it only moved into its current building in 1970.

Since then, three focal points have emerged: expressionist paintings, international graphic design with emphasis on art books and graphic series and works by Mülheim artists. This direction was acknowledged and directly supported through the husband and wife team Maria and Karl Ziegler’s collection in 1981. High quality work by August Macke, Emil Nolde, Erich Heckel, Karl Hofer and Lyonel Feininger were bequeathed to the art museum along with other expressionist works and turned into a foundation. This focal point has been underpinned by an additional gift – the collection of the Mülheim Doctor Karl G. Themel with over 400 works by Heinrich Zille and about 200 works from the French-based Swiss artist Théophile Alexandre Steinlen.

Following renovations the former post headquarters have served as the location for the art museum since 1994. Exhibitions, mainly by young contemporary artists from Germany and abroad, have been displayed here in recent years. A lot of attention has been paid to artists with links to Mülheim and they have been brought to prominance through exhibitions and financially supported through acquisitions.