In 1937, Joseph Goebbels created a commission headed by Adolf Ziegler whose mission was to purge all German government-owned museums of such "degenerate" works.

The Nazi government first organized a mass exhibition of this "degenerate" art—which, ironically, proved to be quite popular—and then began systematically selling the art to raise cash.

[8] A €55m reconstruction was financed by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation under its chairman Berthold Beitz.

The new building, adding 16,000 square metres (170,000 sq ft) to the existing museum, opened in January 2010, when Essen and the Ruhr Area became European Capital of Culture – Ruhr.2010.

The Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation has been granting fellowships for contemporary German photography since 1982 in cooperation with the photographic collection of the Museum Folkwang.

The museum was the site of the seminal Fotografie der Gegenwart exhibition in 1929 at which the leading photographers of the time from Germany, Austria and France were represented.

The Museum Folkwang owns the copyright for the photographers Errell (Richard Levy), Germaine Krull, Helmar Lerski, Walter Peterhans, Fee Schlapper [Wikidata] and Otto Steinert.

According to the statutes, its main aim is "to manage and expand the Folkwang Museum founded by Karl Ernst Osthaus together with the city of Essen and to make it permanently available for research and popular education purposes as a public collection".

The purpose of the association is to manage, expand and public the Folkwang Museum founded by Dr. Karl Ernst Osthaus in Hagen together with the city of Essen 2.

The deliberate internationality of the museum and its activities was enshrined in the statutes only later, in fact it had existed from the beginning – only interrupted during the National Socialist era.