From Hunting Hounds to Modernist Muses, Dachshunds Have Done It All. See the World's First Art Exhibition Dedicated Exclusively to the Sausage Dog

With their elongated spines and floppy ears, dachshunds have spent centuries burrowing into human hearts—and onto artists’ canvases. Now, a German art museum is turning the spotlight on this iconic breed as a muse and an enduring cultural emblem. On Saturday, the Kunsthalle Bremen opened “The Dachshund: An Icon Off the Leash,” an ambitious exhibition tracing the four-legged creature’s many footprints through art history.

Spanning roughly 120 historic and contemporary works, the showcase is believed to be the world’s first exhibition dedicated exclusively to the dachshund in art. Among the show’s highlights are Picasso’s works inspired by Lump, a dachshund who belonged to American photojournalist David Douglas Duncan and lived with Picasso for six years. Picasso inserted the diminutive hound into his famed series of paintings reinterpreting Diego Velázquez’s 17th-century masterpiece Las Meninas, swapping out Velázquez’s solemn Spanish Mastiff for Lump.

Hockney painted his two beloved pet dachshunds in 1995, after a series of personal losses. During the World Wars, the dog became a symbol of Germany, prompting American pet owners to patriotically rebrand their dogs as “liberty hounds” to dodge anti-German backlash. But in the post-war years, the dachshund’s genial, slightly absurd silhouette helped reshape Germany’s global image: The pastel-striped dachshund Waldi became the official mascot of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, chosen to embody a colorful, democratic and open West Germany.

The exhibition does not merely examine the breed from human eyes. It caters directly to four-legged visitors as well. On Thursdays and Saturdays, the museum opens three of its eight exhibition galleries to dachshunds and other pint-sized dogs for sniffing and viewing sessions.

To ensure everyone’s safety and comfort, canine gallery-goers must have a maximum shoulder height of about one foot, reserve a designated online time slot and check in at a specialized “Dachshund Lounge” before touring the halls, per a statement. In 1908, Wadl and Hexl, dachshunds belonging to German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II sparked a minor diplomatic crisis by killing a prized golden pheasant belonging to Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Konopiště Castle. In the first gallery, contemporary artist Thorsten Brinkmann establishes a playful atmosphere with Toxie Love, an installation featuring a vibrant menagerie of stuffed toys and historical memorabilia borrowed from the Dachshund Museum in Regensburg, Germany.

Soumya Sagar is a former medical researcher who conducted research in neurosurgery at some of the top hospitals in the U.S. His work has appeared in New Scientist, Science, Chemical & Engineering News and Live Science. He is a passionate science writer and a voracious consumer of knowledge, especially trivia.