The archive is a place of stories and history
A journey through the exhibitions held to date at the Galerie im Elysée
Since 1985, the hotel’s art gallery, Galerie im Elysée, has been presenting contemporary representational painting from northern Germany in changing exhibitions. In 165 exhibitions to date, artists have been offered a forum that honours the important traditions of realism in the north in the 20th and 21st centuries. Our archive offers a retrospective of selected exhibitions from previous years.
Past exhibitions at the Galerie im Elysée
Bilder der Musik
Exhibition from 7 February to 28 April 2025
The artists
André Krigar, Friedel Anderson, Karsten Mittag, Ralph Bühr and Ulrich Gleiter
Hamburg's musical history is more diverse than that of almost any other city. Important composers such as Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Adolf Hasse, the siblings Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn) and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler worked here and shaped the different musical eras of their time. The artist André Krigar pays tribute to these seven Hamburg greats in a specially created 21-part cycle of large-format portraits and sculptures. In addition, the Galerie im Elysée's latest exhibition features works by four other artists that were created in the context of concerts, trace forgotten female composers and depict places of Hamburg's musical history.
Von Nah und Fern
Exhibition from 3 December 2024 to 2 February 2025
The artists
Tobias Duwe and Björn Wirtz
Nature has always been a source of inspiration for art. Artists who create their works directly in front of their subject matter, responding to the surrounding landscape, light and weather, take this a step further. Painters Tobias Duwe and Björn Wirtz regularly take their easels and palettes out into the open air to capture their impressions. Tobias Duwe's paintings depict the landscape of his northern German homeland and the city of Hamburg, while Björn Wirtz's paintings show the Franconian landscape near Würzburg, where he lives. As members of the North German Realists, both regularly undertake painting trips at home and abroad, sometimes together. Tobias Duwe is a frequent and welcome guest at the Galerie im Elysée, while for Björn Wirtz this is a first. Together, the two artists are exhibiting at the Galerie im Elysée for the first time.
Die Sieben
Exhibition opening on 12 February 2024
The artists
Andreas Claussen, Anne Böddeker, Corinna Weiner, Janko Göttlicher, Marina Krohs, Miriam Hilker and Ulf Petermann
Pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth: the seven deadly sins are the focus of our current exhibition. The idea of deadly sins originated in monastic life in the fifth century AD. Over hundreds of years, a catalogue of sins was developed, refined and finally established based on human weaknesses, vices and passions. Although the deadly sins have lost their existential significance in our lives, they have remained a moral guideline for social behaviour over the centuries.
For our exhibition, seven artists have explored this fascinating topic in a variety of ways. They show us the deadly sins as sweet temptations, unpleasant vices, great allurements and as universal experiences and feelings shared by every human being.






















