Klaus Gallwitz grew up in Dresden and Vienna attending a humanistic grammar school, and graduated from high school in Schulpforta. From 1949 on he studied ancient languages and art history at the Humboldt University in East Berlin, in Halle an der Saale, Kiel, Munich and Göttingen, where he received his doctorate in 1957 on Italian central buildings of the 15th and 16th centuries. In the same year, Gallwitz opened a gallery for contemporary art on Rondellplatz in Karlsruhe with a focus on the young Karlsruhe School around HAP Grieshaber, who was then professor at the Karlsruhe Art Academy. In 1959 Gallwitz became managing director of the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe. There he showed, among others, exhibitions with the complete prints of Max Beckmann (1962), the trilogy "Das Porträt" with works by Max Beckmann (1963), Oskar Kokoschka (1965) and Lovis Corinth (1966) as well as the "Garten der Lüste" by Horst Antes (1967) as a contribution of the Kunstverein to the Bundesgartenschau im Botanischen Garten. From 1967 to 1974 Gallwitz was director at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, where he was responsible, for instance, for Fernand Léger (1967), Pablo Picasso (1968), Wassily Kandinsky (1970), Salvador Dalí (1971), Russian Realists (1972/73), the Pre-Raphaelites (1973) and the experimental exhibition series "14 mal 14. Junge deutsche Künstler" with the participation of Georg Baselitz, Bruno Gironcoli, Almut Heise, Anselm Kiefer, Imi Knoebel, Blinky Palermo, Gerhard Richter, UIrich Rückriem, Eugen Schönebeck and Günther Uecker, to name just a few. In 1968 Gallwitz was a member of the council for "documenta 4". As Commissioner of the Federal Republic of Germany, he was also responsible for the artistic contributions to the "7th Paris Biennale of Youth" (1971) and the Venice Biennale from 1976 to 1980, where he exhibited Joseph Beuys, Jochen Gerz and Reiner Ruthenbeck (1976), Dieter Krieg and Ulrich Rückriem (1978) as well as Georg Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer (1980). In 1974 Gallwitz became director of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main. During his twenty years in office, the following exhibitions took place there: "Die Nazarener" (1975), "Courbet und Deutschland" (1977), "Max Beckmann in Frankfurt 1915−33" (1983) as well as monographic shows on the work of Ulrich Rückriem (1984), Georg Baselitz (1988), Per Kirkeby (1990), Emil Schumacher (1992/93) and Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1994). The Städel Museum's collection was expanded under Gallwitz in particular to include modern and contemporary works, and in 1990 an extension by the architect Gustav Peichl was opened for special exhibitions. Gallwitz taught as an honorary professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and, for many years, was a consultant for the art exhibitions of the Council of Europe and the art collection of the Deutsche Bank. From 1995 to 2002 Gallwitz headed the Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral in Bad Ems. In 2004 he became founding director of the Frieder Burda Museum in Baden-Baden. From 2006 to 2008 he directed the newly founded Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck in Remagen, where he supervised the Gustav Rau Collection for UNICEF until 2010. Commissioned by the Frankfurt am Main City Archive, he organised the exhibition "Max Beckmann kommt nach Frankfurt" in 2015 at the Carmelite Monastery under the fresco remains of Jörg Ratgeb.
