Leopold Museum presents artistic dialogue between Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Egon Schiele

24.02.2020

The exhibition Hundertwasser – Schiele. Imagine Tomorrow shows the two icons of Austrian art together for the first time

19th February 2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928–2000). As a painter, pioneer of the environmental movement and designer of living spaces, he shaped 20th-century art beyond the borders of Austria. The artist’s intense exploration of the personality and oeuvre of Egon Schiele (1890–1918), however, is largely unknown.

Born as Friedrich Stowasser in Vienna, the artist and his Jewish mother survived the National Socialist dictatorship and the Shoah. In 1943 Stowasser created first conscious drawings inspired by nature. Following the end of World War II, he decided to become an artist and enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Through exhibitions and books, Stowasser discovered the art of Viennese Modernism: Egon Schiele, especially, would become a central point of reference for the internationally active artist. Schiele had been famous already among his contemporaries for his characteristic lines, his planar structures and tonal colors. Schiele’s self-staging as a prophet resonated with Hundertwasser as much as his depictions of ensouled nature.

Conceived as an artistic dialogue with Schiele and comprising some 200 exhibits, the exhibition Hundertwasser – Schiele. Imagine Tomorrow leads via Hundertwasser’s Mold Manifesto to Schiele’s depictions of houses and cities, and via the latter’s landscapes to aspects of vegetal abstraction in Hundertwasser’s works. The Leopold Museum presents these two icons of Austrian art in a new, surprising light and retraces the kinship of two artists who, though they never met, had so much in common.

Unexpected but convincing correspondences between the works of Hundertwasser and Schiele occur both in terms of formal esthetics and motifs. The oeuvres of the two artists overlap in specific thematic complexes, including the animistic concept of nature, the artist’s role as prophet or priest, the relationship between the individual and society, as well as the anthropomorphizing understanding of our constructed environment, which in the case of both artists appears like a naturally grown organism.
Hans-Peter Wipplinger, Director of the Leopold Museum

Hundertwasser: I Love Schiele

Based on his notes and diaries, Hundertwasser wrote the poetic text Ich liebe Schiele [I Love Schiele] around 1950/51. To the young painter, Schiele was a “spiritual father” and art a “new religion”. When he first traveled through Italy and North Africa and then moved to Paris in 1949, Hundertwasser wrote countless letters to his mother in Vienna. In these documents, he outlined his deliberations on art, compiled lists of his favorite artists and repeatedly mentioned Egon Schiele. Upon his arrival in Paris, he asked his mother to send him publications on the artist, which he gave to his friends. Hundertwasser’s love for Schiele lasted a lifetime. Even after Hundertwasser had found himself as an artist in 1950, his affinity for Schiele’s art remained unbroken and even late in life, he still surrounded himself with reproductions of Schiele’s works in his studios and homes.

The elective affinity between Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Egon Schiele represents an extraordinary circumstance in 20th-century art. It is founded on art-historically verifiable filiations and contexts in the areas of style and forms as well as in terms of intellect and ideas. These can also be proven empirically through the archival documents from the younger artist’s estate, which are only just starting to be processed.
Robert Fleck, curator of the exhibition

Which Schiele did Hundertwasser encounter?

Friedrich Stowasser, who from the mid-1950s called himself Hundertwasser, had reacted since 1948 to a changing exhibition policy geared towards the re-discovery of Viennese Modernism. As an adolescent in Vienna, Hundertwasser would have encountered Egon Schiele’s oeuvre in various places, with exhibitions, books, portfolios of graphic works and newspaper articles honoring the achievements of the by now myth-enshrouded painter and draftsman.

Already in 1950/51, Hundertwasser professed: ‘I love Schiele’! Two years previously, he had discovered the life and oeuvre of the Viennese Expressionist through exhibitions and books. His enthusiasm for Schiele’s paintings and virtuosic lines lasted a lifetime. Which of Schiele’s concepts and works impressed Hundertwasser? Both artists used self-depictions to stage themselves as artists and visionary personalities. The exhibition at the Leopold Museum is the first to highlight the connections between Hundertwasser’s spirals and Schiele’s “Dead Mother” I, as well as between both artists’ concepts of cities and nature.
Alexandra Matzner, scientific adviser to the exhibition

Re-enactment. “The Vienna Line”

On 18th February 2020 the Leopold Museum hosted students of the University of Applied Arts Vienna under the aegis of Bazon Brock for a re-enactment of the “infinite line”. During the winter semester of 1959/60, Hundertwasser accepted a post as a guest lecturer at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts. Together with Bazon Brock and Herbert Schuldt, Hundertwasser strove towards an “infinite line” in a performative act that began on 18th December 1959 and would go down in art history as The Hamburg Line. The action saw participants take turns day and night to draw an irregular line over walls and windows using brushes and paint. The project made such waves in the media that the head of the university banned its continuation, with Hundertwasser prematurely ending the line drawing on 20th December.

The presentation Imagine Tomorrow. Hundertwasser – Schiele was conceived in cooperation with The Hundertwasser Non-Profit Private Foundation Vienna and will be shown at the Leopold Museum until 31st August 2020. The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue, edited by Hans-Peter Wipplinger, with a foreword by Hans-Peter Wipplinger and essays by Alexandra Matzner, Robert Fleck and Bazon Brock.

Opening celebrations

“Flower power” fundraising dinner and opening celebrations

The grand fundraising dinner, held on Tuesday, 18th February 2020 on the occasion of the exhibition Hundertwasser – Schiele and hosted by Leopold Museum Director Hans-Peter Wipplinger, chairman of the board Josef Ostermayer, board member Agnes Husslein-Arco and the head of the Circle of Patrons Georg Pölzl, was celebrated under the banner of “flower power”. Proceeds from the exclusive event go towards the research activities of the Leopold Museum Research Center.

Following an elegant cocktail reception at the museum’s festively lit upper atrium adorned with projections of works by Hundertwasser and Schiele, the event’s guests, who were dressed in the style of the late 1960s, visited the exhibition and subsequently enjoyed the dinner at tables decorated in the brightest Hundertwasser colors and with splendid flowers. The animated musical entertainment was provided by the violinist Aliosha Biz.

Among the approximately 300 guests of the fundraising dinner and 2,000 visitors attending the exhibition opening on Thursday, 19th February 2020 were numerous celebrities from art, culture and business, including Joram Harel, chairman of the board of The Hundertwasser Foundation and his wife Lorna Harel, Andrea Fürst (Hundertwasser Archive), the collectors and lenders Mimi and Alexander Eisenberger, Christian Baha and Steffi Graf, Diethard and Waltraud Leopold, as well as Klaus and Friederike Ortner, the exhibition’s curator Robert Fleck, “thinker on duty” Bazon Brock, Desirée Treichl-Stürgkh and Andreas Treichl, the artists Arik Brauer and his wife Naomi, Martha Jungwirth, Elise and Erwin Wurm, Constantin Luser, Hans Kupelwieser, Hubert Scheibl, as well as Martin Schnur and Walter Vopava. Also in attendance were Christoph la Garde (auctioneers im Kinsky), Andrea Jungmann (Sotheby’s Austria), architect Carl Pruscha and artist Eva Schlegel, Florian Steininger (Director Kunsthalle Krems), Bettina Leidl (Director Kunst Haus Wien), Donatella Ceccarelli (Flick Private Foundation), Sandra Tretter (Deputy Director Klimt Foundation), the New York gallery owner and Schiele expert Jane Kallir (Gallery St. Etienne), Herbert and Friederike Koch, former Finance Minister Hartwig Löger, Karl Regensburger (Artistic Director of ImPulsTanz), Gerald Bast (Head of the University of Applied Arts), Peter Baum, Philipp Breicha, Beat Steffan, Peggy and Christine Groult, Hans Raumauf and Barbara Grötschnig (Vienna Insurance Group), gallery owner Julius Hummel, Alexandra Matzner (scientific adviser to the exhibition), Christian Strasser (Director MuseumsQuartier), Christina Schwarz (Financial Manager Wien Museum), the art historians Patrick Werkner and Werner Telesko, entrepreneur Friedrich Wille, and many others.

List of sponsors – fundraising dinner

Almuth Bene Eventarchitektur
Campari Group
Chopard
Del Fabro
Gerin
Schloss Gobelsburg
Weingut Hirsch
Motto Catering
Schlumberger
Siwacht
Sound Production
Ströck
Vöslauer
Christine Wegscheider
Zweigstelle Atelier

Images of the fundraising dinner
Photos: Andreas Tischler and Ouriel Morgensztern /© Leopold Museum, Vienna

Images of the exhibition opening
Photos: Leopold Museum /APA-Photoservice/Tanzer

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