So, you're intimately familiar with Oktoberfest and the Chicago Brauhaus. But did you know that the German influence in Chicago extends beyond beer? Stop in at Worthington Gallery, and you’ll soon be saying "Ich liebe kunst!" ("I love art!") in addition to "Ich muss trinken!" ("I must drink!").

Owner Eva-Maria Worthington founded this easy-to-miss 15th-floor gallery space in 1970, filling the innocuous-looking office space with an impressive collection of 20th-century German art. The German Expressionist period, one of the gallery's main focuses, took place in the 1920s, after the devastation of WWI. Artists like Kathe Kollwitz and Max Beckmann focused on portraying emotions, the human condition and life in Germany.

Other pivotal German art movements represented here include the Blaue Reiter, a movement from 1911–14 that centered around a desire to express spiritual truths through art (named after a Kandinsky painting); Bauhaus, a school that lasted from 1919–33 whose art was characterized by functionality, simple forms and mass production; and Neue Sachlichkeit, (literally "new objectivity"), which favored realism over German Expressionism, as in works by Otto Dix and George Grosz.

Centerstage Reviewer: Alicia Eler