Since the early 1970s, the collection of the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation has evolved. It includes works of the 20th and 21st centuries by artists such as Wols, Mark Tobey, André Thomkins, John Cage and Dieter Roth. With an initial focus on abstract art, the collection later expanded—not least through acquaintance and friendship with the artists—into other areas such as Pop Art, Nouveau realisme, and Fluxus, with works by Emmett Williams, Richard Hamilton, and Daniel Spoerri. This publication, published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the collection, looks back at its history and serves as an updated scholarly inventory catalogue of all the works.

The Karin and Uwe HOLLWEG FOUNDATION was established in 1996 as a non-profit foundation under civil law. The originally private art collection, which has been incorporated into the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation since 2012, is located in the Hollweg Haus in Bremen. After several extensive expansions, the foundation has been displaying over 1,000 works of 20th- and 21st-century art on four levels since spring 2013.