Richart Reiche (1876-1943), an art historian from Barmen, became artistic director of the Kunsthalle Barmen. In 1910, modern art was introduced to the Barmen public for the first time with the exhibition of the “Neue Künstlervereinigung München (NKVM)”. The Kunsthalle was a center of expressionist art until the First World War. Exhibitions with works by Wassili Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Alexej Jawlensky, among others.