Leopold Museum: Director Hans-Peter Wipplinger Hosts New Year’s Reception
23.01.2024
Presentation of Exhibition Program for Circle of Patrons, Salon Leopold, Sponsors and Friends of the Museum
Some 160 guests from the areas of culture, politics and business enjoyed an atmospheric New Year’s reception held at the atrium of the Leopold Museum, among them the CEO of the Austrian Post and Head of the Circle of Patrons Georg Pölzl, the COP board members former Federal Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein, Sabina Baumgartner-Parzer (MedUni Wien), Moritz Stipsicz (Commercial Director of the Leopold Museum), Eva-Maria Höfer (collector), Harald Friedrich (LLB Austria) and Clemens Philipp Schindler (Schindler Attorneys), the members of the Leopold Museum’s Board of Directors Sonja Hammerschmid, Saskia Leopold and Danielle Spera, the artists Anna Jermolaewa, Andreas Duscha and Constantin Luser, and the gallery owners Ernst Hilger, Alexander Giese, Lorenz Estermann, Nikolaus Kolhammer and Cornelis van Almsick. Further guests included Maria Damisch, Susanna Tabaka-Pillhofer, Helene von Damm (former US ambassador), the architects Herbert Eisenköck and Markus Spiegelfeld, Stefan Ottrubay (chairman of Esterházy-Stiftungen and CEO of Esterházy-Betriebe), Georg Riedl (chairman of Wiener Städtische Wechselseitiger Versicherungsverein), the members of the Salon Leopold committee Jürgen Pölzl (Bluecode), Catharina Knobloch (siwacht) and Jakob Jelinek (ARE Austrian Real Estate), Clemens Leopold (Sustainability&), Peter Umundum (Post AG), Gerald Salzmann (LGT Private Banking), Andreas Fleischmann (Raiffeisen Continuum), Helmut Schoba (VGN), art historian Christoph Becker (former director of the Kunsthaus Zürich), Katrin Duscher (OMV), Marianne Hussl-Hörmann (Dorotheum), art historian Thomas Zaunschirm, Benno Pichler (Zone), Bernhard Mechtler (KPMG), Peter Weinhäupl and Sandra Tretter (Klimt Foundation), Birgit Vikas (Kunsttrans), collector Philipp Breicha, and many others.
The 2024 Exhibition Program at the Leopold Museum
The focus of 2024’s exhibition program is on “New Objectivity”. An extensive overview exhibition of the German exponents of this art movement, which opens in the spring, will be followed in the autumn by the first comprehensive monographic exhibition dedicated to the oeuvre of the eminent Austrian representative of New Objectivity, Rudolf Wacker, in Vienna. Marking 200 years since the founding of the Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein, a long-standing partner of the Leopold Museum, the museum shows works from the international insurance company’s art collections – from Classical Modernism to the present. A particular highlight of this year’s exhibition program is the first ever presentation of the Backhausen Archives, featuring precious items of Viennese Modernism, from Koloman Moser to Josef Hoffmann.
Generous Donation to the Leopold Museum
At the end of 2023, the Leopold Museum received a very special Christmas present. A Viennese patroness made it possible for the museum to acquire the 1911 painting Portrait of Arthur Schnitzler by Max Oppenheimer (Vienna 1885–1954 New York). The painting, which was bought at auction by the Director of the Leopold Museum Hans-Peter Wipplinger with Ketterer auctioneers in Munich, was formally unveiled during the New Year’s reception, and is on display as of now as part of the exhibition Max Oppenheimer. Expressionist Pioneer. The successful show has been enthusiastically received by some 125,000 visitors so far and is still on display until 25th February at the Leopold Museum. The work is now the third important Oppenheimer painting in the collection of the Leopold Museum, together with the Portrait of Tilla Durieux (1912), bought by Rudolf Leopold, and a 1911 Self-Portrait, which was also acquired in 2023.
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