The MKM has key works on display from the Ströher collection, which, with around 1500 works, covers central artistic developments in Germany from the immediate post-war period to the present day. The current portfolio stems from the successful fusion in 2005 of the wide-ranging collection of Slyvia and Ulrich Ströher (focal point – abstract post war art) and the former collection of Hans Grothe (painter and sculptor from the 1970s to 1990s). 

Several of the artists in the Ströher collection not only count as some of the most important in Germany but also in the world. The main focus of the collection is on paintings, but it also contains sculptures and photography including works by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Anna and Bernhard Blume, Thomas Florschuetz, Andreas Gursky and Candida Höfer. 

The painting collection covers artists from the inter and post-war generations such as Max Ackermann, Hans Arp, Willi Baumeister, Georg Meistermann; representatives of Informel art (K.O. Götz, Gerhard Hoehme, Norbert Kricke, Bernard Schultze and Emil Schumacher among others); representational art and constructivist art by Josef Albers, Ulrich Erben, Rupprecht Geiger, Georg Karl Pfahler, Ulrich Rückriem as well as representatives of minimal art such as Günther Förg, Imi Knoebel and Blinky Palermo. An additional focal point is painting from 1960 onwards. Significant pieces in the collection are by Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, Anselm Kiefer, Markus Lüpertz, A.R. Penck, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter.