The municipal ”Bellevue Gallery“
The history of the Bellevue-Saal as an exhibition space began in 1987. After the City of Wiesbaden’s  Cultural Affairs Office of the City of Wiesbaden had moved into the building at Wilhelmstrasse 32. The municipal exhibition activities began the following year in the Bellevue Hall under the name ”Galerie Bellevue“ under the direction of Mrs. Isolde Schmidt. The exhibitions were subsidised with considerable sums for material and advertising costs. But these lucky times were short-lived. By the end of 1993, the Bellevue Gallery was already threatened with closure due to the city's tighter finances. The Wiesbadener Tagblatt therefore prefaced its report of 14 October 1993 with the headline: ”Artist funding falls victim to the red pen. No more exhibitions in the Bellevue Gallery“.

The saving concept
In this situation, Helmut Schulze-Reichenberg and Gottfried Hafemann, the then chairmen of the ”Association for the Realisation of Artistic Projects with Social Relevance“, founded in 1986, developed the concept 1:1. A local and a foreign artist should jointly conceive and realise an exhibition in the Bellevue-Saal. This concept is still an important part today and the grants originally provided by the City of Wiesbaden are now awarded by the Bellevue-Saal Art Association.

Illustrious past
There is an interesting prehistory to the Bellevue-Saal as an exhibition space. The ”Revue Internationale HOTEL“ No.10 of 1 April 1936 reports on the 30th and 75th anniversaries of the Hotel Bellevue: ”On the site where the hotel building at Wilhelmstrasse 32 (formerly Alleestrasse) now stands, there used to be a three-storey tenement house which was first mentioned in official records in 1820. [...] The building changed hands several times. [...] In 1864, Karl Werminghoff from Neuss bought the property. He further developed the house, previously known as 'Schmitt's Privathotel', under the name 'Hotel Belle-Vue' and ran it as such.“ 
The article proudly lists a large number of royalty and prominent guests who at that time ”took up residence in the Hotel Belle-Vue and in some cases resided there repeatedly for longer spa stays.“

Indulgence takes hold
The hotel remained in the hands of Karl Werminghoff for over twenty years before he sold it to Victor Kleeblatt in 1884. From 1888 onwards, ”Mr Kleeblatt had further alterations and modernisations carried out in  to the hotel, and at the same time ran an extensive restaurant business in the newly built dining room alongside the hotel.“

American, Dutch and French guests made up a large proportion of the hotel's guests at this  the time. The fact that French travellers in particular were frequent guests was due not only to the French name of the hotel, but also to the fact that Victor Kleeblatt had worked as a head waiter in Versailles for many years and had established important contacts.

However, things were not yet quite as comfortable as in Versaille: for example, the rooms were still heated by stoves; only the newly built dining room already had hot water heating. The thermal water for the baths had to be transported in barrels –In addition  a lift had was not yet been installed.part of the equipment. However, this was to change with the next ownership.

A new building – including the present Bellevue-Saal
For us, the most interesting part of the hotel’s history began when Mr Kleeblatt sold the two properties at Marktplatz 5 and Wilhelmstrasse 32 to Wilhelm August Hees after twenty years in 1904. In order to meet the modern requirements of the guests, Mr Hees decided to erect a new building with an additional dining room. Both are still standing today. Work began on 3 October 1905 and in just under a year and a half the hotel was rebuilt and ”fully equipped with all modern facilities“. The hotel's advertising brochure proudly proclaims that there are thermal baths on all floors with a direct supply from the spring, that the rooms have hot and cold running water and central heating.

Enjoying art instead of eating and drinking
The new Hotel Bellevue was opened on 15 February 1906. This was also the birth of the Bellevue Hall as we still know it today.

But the days of the hotel are over. Now it is art! Since 1994, contemporary art has been shown, discussed and celebrated in the former dining room. The documentation show the great variety of the exhibitions and actions that which have taken place.