The Draiflessen Collection

The Draiflessen Collection was founded in 2009 on the private initiative of the Brenninkmeijer family of entrepreneurs. With its programme and exhibitions, the art museum approaches themes that move between areas of tension such as tradition and the future, faith and doubt, borders and freedom, reality and fiction, and which are illuminated from artistic and scientific perspectives.
Each exhibition is supplemented by an extensive accompanying programme as well as a specific range of pedagogical activities mediating it and workshops for adults, children, and families.

The Draiflessen Collection also holds an extensive archive for collecting, safekeeping, and doing research on documents and other items connected with the history of the family and the business. The ancestors of the Brenninkmeijer founding family were members of the so-called Tüötten, travelling traders from Westphalia who moved around Germany and Northern Europe doing business with linen, above all in the 17th and 18th century. In selecting the location for Draiflessen, the entrepreneur family deliberately took up its roots in Westphalia and its hometown of Mettingen. At the same time, this choice was also connected with the decision to expand the range of cultural institutions in the region with an art museum outside the metropolises.

The name ‘Draiflessen’ is a word construction derived from the old, secret language of the Tüötten. Its two root words stems ‘drai’ (meaning: three, Trinity, turn, do business) and ‘flessen’ (meaning: flax, linen, home) express themes that are meaningful for the founding family: its close relationship to its Westphalian origins, its Christian faith, and its entrepreneurship, which, at its time, had its beginnings in the textile trade.