Museum of humorous art, both permanent & temporary exhibits, displaying work by German cartoonists. Since the founding of the satirical magazines Pardon in 1962 and Titanic in 1972, Frankfurt am Main has been recognized as the capital of satire. Continuing this legacy, the Caricatura Museum Frankfurt – Museum of Comic Art upholds this tradition. The foundation of its collection comprises the drawings of F.W. Bernstein, Robert Gernhardt, Chlodwig Poth, and Hans Traxler, along with F.K. Waechter and authors Bernd Eilert, Eckard Henscheid, and Pit Knorr, collectively known as the Neue Frankfurter Schule (NFS). This group has significantly shaped contemporary German comedy to this day.
By the late nineties, the idea of a permanent tribute to their satirical drawings had taken root, leading to a meeting between the then Cultural Affairs Commissioner, Hans-Bernhard Nordhoff, and Titanic illustrators and authors, as well as Achim Frenz, who was subsequently tasked with establishing a museum. Frenz had previously overseen comic art under the label “Caricatura” in Kassel and continues to lead the museum today.
From 2000 to 2008, Caricatura operated as a department within the Historical Museum Frankfurt. Finally, on October 1, 2008, the Caricatura Museum Frankfurt opened its doors at the Weckmarkt – in the Leinwandhaus, the first dedicated building of the Historical Museum, built in 1892. Since April 2019, Caricatura Museum has been administratively separated from the Historical Museum and is now an independent institution under the auspices of the Frankfurt Cultural Office.
The emblem of Caricatura is a bronze sculpture of an elk, designed by Hans Traxler, standing in front of the building, adorned with a trench coat, vest, and hat. The sandstone base of the sculpture bears a bronze plaque with the names of the eight representatives of the Neue Frankfurter Schule, along with the motto coined by F.W. Bernstein, “The sharpest critics of elk were once elk themselves.”
In 2020, the Caricatura Museum Frankfurt, together with the Caricatura – Galerie für Komische Kunst Kassel, was awarded the Hessian Cultural Prize for its commitment to the genre of caricature. This award, totaling €45,000, is the most prestigious cultural prize in the Federal Republic of Germany.
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