German puppetry museum in Lübeck. The TheaterFigurenMuseum Lübeck opened in 1982 in five historic town houses in the old city area. Approximately a thousand objects from the collection of Fritz Fey Jr. (b.1940) are on display.
Born into a family of puppeteers (see Figurentheater Lübeck), Fey travelled widely in his work as a cameraman with the NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk, North German Broadcasting). Beginning in the 1970s, Fey and his Indian wife, Saraswathi, collected puppets and related materials. The pair acquired more than 30,000 figures and artefacts from Europe, Asia, and Africa. The 19th-century European tradition, and particularly, the fairground puppetry of the Schichtl family, is one focus of the collection. Traditional Asian shadow theatre, especially genres from India, is another.
Since 2012, the museum has been managed by Martina Wagner. The first special exhibition and international symposium in 2012 dealt with the mechanical figures and automobile sculptures by Harry Kramer. Other exhibits have focused on the relationship between Chinese shadow puppetry and Beijing opera and the Augsburger Puppenkiste (Augsberg Puppet Box). The museum collaborates with Figurentheater Lübeck.
(See Germany.)