Marty K.
Yelp
This extraordinary museum is off the tourist track for most visitors. But don't miss it.
The artist and teacher Franz Stuck (later Count Franz von Stuck) was mentor and godfather to a generation of Jugendstil (Art Noveau) masters--he taught Kandinsky, Klee, and a brace of other household names. He was a pretty famous artist himself, specialising in classical mythology. This was, I think, little more than an excuse for lots of nudes, since he was a true bohemian louche.
A bohemian louche that got lucky, though. He married a rich American widow, and she underwrote the construction of a truly magnificent house. The architecture draws on classical themes, and the decor is rich, decadent, and arcane. The studio upstairs houses a "temple" to his art, with a reproduction of his most famous work, "The Sin". (The original hangs prominently in the Neue Pinakothek.) The house and its furniture won the architecture prize at the Paris Exhibition of 1900.
If you're maxxed out on art at the Pinakotheken, then spare 90 minutes for a quick schlep to the Villa Stuck. Catch the Museum Line bus 100 toward the Ostbahnhof. Get off at the Friedensengel/Villa Stuck stop, and take a moment to admire the nearby Friedensengel monument. (The so-called "Angel of Peace" has a story all its own...) If you can spare the time, a quick walk further down Prinzregentenstrße will bring you to Prinzregentenplatz, with its famous theater, surrounded by some splendid Art Noveau buildings.
As you enter the Villa, one can turn to the left for the temporary exhibitions housed in what used to be Stuck's art school and garage. To the right is the villa proper, and for a reduced admission you can buy a villa-only ticket. That's really what you came to see.
You can cover the Villa bit in about half an hour or so, and it will be half an hour well spent. It gives visitors a sense of what Munich was like around the turn of the last century, when the city's artistic foment reached a peak.
