Würth La Rioja Museum
In La Rioja, inside one of Europe’s great private collections
ARS Foundation visits the Würth La Rioja Museum, its permanent collection and the exhibition “Arquetipas. La imagen de la mujer a través de la Colección Würth”
Last 6 October, a delegation from ARS Foundation visited the Würth La Rioja Museum in Agoncillo, Logroño. The visit was an opportunity to discover the museum’s permanent collection, the temporary exhibition “Arquetipas” and the model behind it all: a network of museums and art spaces that the Würth Group maintains in several European countries.
A collection visible from the entrance
The Würth La Rioja Museum opened its doors on 7 September 2007, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of Würth España. It stands in the El Sequero industrial estate, next to the company’s headquarters: art coexists with everyday work, an idea that defines all Würth spaces.
The permanent collection begins before you even cross the threshold. Lillie, the sculpture by Manolo Valdés, has welcomed visitors since the opening. In the main atrium stands a site-specific work by Darío Urzay. In the sculpture garden, two pieces also created for this space, by Miquel Navarro and Richard Deacon.
These works belong to the Würth España Collection, which the group’s Spanish subsidiary began assembling in 2004. It includes, among others, Manolo Valdés, Miquel Barceló, Jaume Plensa, Miquel Navarro, Richard Deacon, Darío Urzay, José Manuel Ballester, Xavier Mascaró, Tony Oursler and David Rodriguez Caballero.
The welcome we received reflects the dedication with which the entire team works and a generous willingness to share their efforts, making the visit a true pleasure.
“Arquetipas”: women in art, from 1902 to 2022
The temporary exhibition brings together 100 works by 77 international artists, all from the Würth Collection and dating from between 1902 and 2022. Its starting point: for centuries, a large share of images of women were created by male artists, and that visual code often cast them in a passive role.
The exhibition explores the female archetypes that art has repeated — the caring mother, the muse, the femme fatale, the witch, the maiden — and how they have been questioned and reinterpreted since the 20th century. It does so through Pop Art, Surrealism, Neo-Expressionism, Conceptual Art and Hyperrealism.
The artists on show include Gustav Klimt, Pablo Picasso, Paula Modersohn-Becker, René Magritte, Roy Lichtenstein, Fernando Botero, John Baldessari, Jaume Plensa, Marc Quinn and Xenia Hausner.
A European network with free admission
The La Rioja museum is part of a unique model. The Würth Collection was born in 1972, when Reinhold Würth acquired Reflejo de nubes en las marismas (1935) by Emil Nolde, and today it exceeds 20,000 works, spanning some 500 years of art history with particular emphasis on the 20th and 21st centuries. Picasso, Munch, Klimt, Max Bill, Chillida, Albers, Henry Moore, Miró, Warhol, Hockney, Kiefer and Baselitz are among its holdings.
The group shows it in 15 museums and art spaces spread across Germany and eight other European countries: Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Norway. Admission to all of them is free. In 2024 they received, together, some 495,000 visitors, and although the La Rioja museum is neither the best known nor the most visited, it is well worth a visit.
The main ones include:
Museum Würth, in Künzelsau (1991), and Museum Würth 2 (2020), next to the group’s headquarters;
Kunsthalle Würth (2001) and Johanniterkirche (since 2008), in Schwäbisch Hall;
Musée Würth France, in Erstein, near Strasbourg;
Art Room Würth, in Böheimkirchen (Austria), and Kulturforum Würth, in Kolding (Denmark), both from 1999;
the Rorschach space (Switzerland), opened in 2013;
and the Würth La Rioja Museum, in Agoncillo (2007).
For a foundation like ours, the appeal of the model is clear: a corporate collection that is not kept in storage, but is opened to the public free of charge, on an ongoing basis and in several countries at once.
A meeting with a view to continuity
The visit also looked to the future. ARS Foundation is preparing the International Sculpture Biennial of the Basque Country, whose first edition is planned for 2028. The presence of sculpture in public space and the opening of a collection to the local community, as the Würth La Rioja Museum does, are undoubtedly direct references for that project.
ARS Foundation thanks Laura Peña and Silvia Lindner, as well as the entire team at the Würth La Rioja Museum, for their hospitality.
How to visit. “Arquetipas. La imagen de la mujer a través de la Colección Würth” is on view until 4 April 2027 at the Würth La Rioja Museum (Pol. Ind. El Sequero, Avda. Cameros, plots 86-89, Agoncillo · +34 941 010 410). Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 to 19:00; Sundays, 10:00 to 14:30; closed on Mondays. Free admission.
