On 22 December 2017, the Lord Mayor Sven Gerich and the collector Reinhard Ernst signed a leasehold agreement for "Wiesbaden's most valuable property" (according to the Wiesbadener Kurier) on Wilhelmstraße 1 for the Reinhard und Sonja Ernst Foundation, thus officially confirming that the Hessian state capital will receive a new art museum. Designed and built by Fumihiko Maki, the Reinhard Ernst Museum in Wiesbaden will present at the highest level three closely linked art historical currents: American Abstract Expressionism, European Informel and the Japanese Gutai Group.

Reinhard Ernst's 30-year collecting career has always focused on his love of color. This fascination is impressively reflected in the selection made for the book of 160 works by 134 artists from Europe, Japan and the USA, born between 1880 and 1977. Hubert Berke and Helen Frankenthaler, Japanese artists from the Gutai Group's environment, and the continuation of informal impulses in contemporary art are particular focal points. Opulently illustrated, the volume, published in German and English, arouses curiosity about the presentation of the collection in the museum building of the Reinhard Ernst Collection in Wiesbaden planned for 2021.

The Museum Reinhard Ernst takes up a special avant-garde moment in Wiesbaden, namely the exhibition "Couleur Vivante", which took place from April to June 1957 in the Museum Wiesbaden and was the first German museum exhibition of the young French and German Informel. This connection between the Museum Reinhard Ernst and the Museum Wiesbaden is to become visible in a future close collaboration between the two institutions and begins with the presentation of the book and the first glimpse of the Ernst Collection in the rooms of the Museum Wiesbaden.