PREMIERE! – THE LEOPOLD MUSEUM PRESENTS THE COLLECTION OF THE OESTERREICHISCHE NATIONALBANK FOR THE FIRST TIME

28.04.2026

Large crowds attended yesterday’s opening of the exhibition uniting works from 100 years of Austrian art history.

Marking the Leopold Museum’s 25-year anniversary, the exhibition PREMIERE! The Collection of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, shown from 24th April, is the first presentation of this eminent art collection. The works selected for this exhibition – 114 artworks by 79 artists, from Oskar Kokoschka to Greta Freist, from Joannis Avramidis to Franz West, and from Martha Jungwirth to Heimo Zobernig – afford a vivid overview of central aspects across some 100 years of Austrian art production.

“With this exhibition, which marks the Leopold Museum’s 25-year anniversary, we wish to celebrate an important partner whose substantial financial support was indispensable for the establishment of the Leopold Foundation in 1994. The Leopold Museum facilitates regular presentations of eminent private and corporate collections, not least in order to honor the extraordinary achievements of the collector and founder Rudolf Leopold. What, then, could be more fitting than to mark the museum’s anniversary by showcasing the collection of the very partner that contributed so significantly to its coming into being.”

Hans-Peter Wipplinger, Director of the Leopold Museum and curator of the exhibition

Only individual works from the OeNB’s collection have been presented to the public so far, either as long-term loans on display at the Albertina and the Leopold Museum, or as temporary loans shown in special exhibitions. Since the late 1980s, the OeNB has been focusing its collecting activities on Austrian painting and sculpture from 1918 to the present. The main emphases of the collection, which includes some 2,300 works, are on painting from the interwar period as well as on gestural and geometrical abstraction after 1945. Like the collection itself, the exhibition traces an arc from post-Expressionist positions and examples of New Objectivity, to variants of abstraction in the second half of the 20th century and contemporary art. The exhibition honors the long-standing, close ties between the Leopold Museum and the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, and renders the OeNB’s commitment to art and culture visible. Over time, the works in the OeNB’s collection have become an integral part of its employees’ working environment. Only a fraction of the collection has been presented to the public to date.

“The OeNB Collection is a vibrant part of our daily working life. It shapes the visual identity of our bank and provides an inspiring environment for our employees and guests. Its value, however, goes far beyond mere esthetics: The artworks promote an exchange between colleagues, prompt discussions and offer new perspectives. They remind us that economy and culture are intrinsically linked. The art collection of the OeNB represents a piece of Austrian cultural history which we preserve and pass on. The current exhibition at the Leopold Museum affords a unique opportunity to showcase the diversity and significance of our collection to a large audience.”

Martin Kocher, Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank

In the late 1980s, the OeNB decided on collecting works by “Austrian painters of the interwar era”. Throughout the ensuing years, the bank managed to acquire preeminent works of New Objectivity – a movement which in Austria was long overshadowed by Jugendstil and Expressionism. In 1925, the year that the first major overview exhibition of positions of New Objectivity was shown in Mannheim, Austria introduced the schilling as a new currency. In the late 1990s, at the same time the OeNB was preparing for the introduction of euro cash, the institution started to increasingly focus on collecting contemporary artworks.

“Along with the predefined aim of preserving Austrian cultural assets for the country, the sense of responsibility towards Austrian art was one of the reasons for focusing on Austrian artists. The collection also reflects changes in society: Just as Austria’s population is constantly in flux due to migration and people living in the country temporarily, the OeNB now also collects works by artists who were not born in Austria, but live and work here.”

Chiara Galbusera, curator of the OeNB’s art collection and co-curator of the exhibition

Aspects of the Exhibition

The exhibition starts with works of post-Expressionism: In the wake of World War I, a generation of artist left the radical introspection and self-questioning of Expressionism behind, and developed a more moderate expressive form language. Their main themes were landscapes, still lifes and portraits. The subsequent part of the presentation is dedicated to New Objectivity. Rendered in sharp and unsentimental depictions, the exponents of this movement found their themes in everyday and ostensibly banal occurrences, staging portraits and still lifes, people and objects with sober detachment. As opposed to the precise, razor-sharp version of New Objectivity prevalent in Germany, Austrian artists predominantly pursued the movement’s classicist variant. Numerous artists represented in the exhibition were forced to flee Austria in 1938 due to National Socialist persecution. The exhibition further features examples of Magical Realism, a special variant of New Objectivity, as well as mystical-gloomy and escapist depictions.

Works of art after 1945 and of contemporary art make up another important part of the collection. Abstraction has been one of the most influential movements in Austrian art since the end of World War II. Representing a deliberate rejection of representational depictions, the abstract form language was the only way that artists could process the catastrophes of dictatorship and destruction. The presentation showcases developments and facets of Austrian abstract art production from the later 20th century and the 21st century, including works of Art Informel and Geometrical Abstraction.

 

The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue (DE/EN).

Curators: Chiara Galbusera, Hans-Peter Wipplinger

 

Large Turnout for Opening Celebrations

The exhibition opened with speeches by Josef Ostermayer (head of the board of directors, Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung), Josef Meichenitsch (Director of the OeNB) and the Leopold Museum’s Director Hans-Peter Wipplinger who curated the presentation together with Chiara Galbusera (OeNB). The musicians of the Simply Quartet, who play string instruments from the OeNB’s collection, provided the musical backdrop, performing the 1st movement of Mozart’s String Quartet No. 17, nicknamed “The Hunt”.

The opening celebrations were attended by around 1,100 guests, among them eminent personalities, including the Leopold Museum board members Sonja Hammerschmid, Saskia Leopold and Danielle Spera, Moritz Stipsicz (Managing Director, Leopold Museum); on behalf of the OeNB, the bank’s Governor Martin Kocher, Vice-Governor Edeltraud Stiftinger, Dir. Josef Meichenitsch, Silvia Hruška-Frank (general council OeNB, director of the Chamber of Labour AK-Wien), the former Governor of the OeNB Robert Holzmann, Herwig Romé (head of the OeNB’s Money Museum) and Manfred Matzinger-Leopold (board director of Münze Österreich); Lili Hollein (CEO MAK), Christoph Thun-Hohenstein (former CEO MAK), Cosima Rainer (head of the art collection of the University of Applied Arts Vienna), as well as the curators Elisabeth Dutz (Albertina), Abaseh Mirvali, Brigitte Neider-Olufs, Franz Smola (Belvedere) and Verena Gamper (Belvedere). The board of the LM’s Circle of Patrons was represented by Sabina Baumgartner-Parzer, Thomas Baumgartner and the architect Hermann Eisenköck, while the Salon Leopold was represented by the committee members Catharina Knobloch, Jakob Jelinek and Jürgen Pölzl. Also in attendance were the artists featured in the exhibition Franz Graf, Herbert Hinteregger, Franco Kappl, Soli Kiani, Michael Kienzer, Suse Krawagna, Ulrike Müller, Tobias Pils, Hubert Scheibl, Florian Schmidt, Esther Stocker, Walter Vopava and Heimo Zobernig, as well as the artists Julia Avramidis, Claudia Schuhmann, Ingo Nussbaumer and Rudi Molacek. The guests further included Peter Pakesch (Maria Lassnig Stiftung), the former director of the Liechtenstein Museum Johann Kräftner, gallery owners Suanne Bauer, Martin Janda, Renate Kainer and Christian Meyer (Galerie Meyer*Kainer), Helga and Peter Krobath (Galerie Krobath), Inés Lombardi, Petra Seiser, Rosemarie Schwarzwälder (Galerie nächst St. Stephan), Carol Tachdjian (Galerie Steinek), Andrea Zehetbauer (CEO ZS Art Galerie), Eberhard Kohlbacher & Alois Wienerroither (W&K), the collectors Thomas Angermair and Katja Angermair, Bernhard Hainz, Waltraud Leopold, Roland Schmidt, financial expert Peter Zöllner, Thomas Lichtblau (Managing Director Casinos Austria), Dieter Türmer (Senior Manager Marketing Casinos Austria), Georg Stradiot (Wiener Silber Manufaktur), the architects Boris Podrecca, Laurids Ortner and Markus Spiegelfeld, Helmut Ettl (executive director FMA, OeNB), art expert Francesca Gavin, Ursula Pokorny (curator of the OeNB’s art collection), Stefan Gschiegl (OeNB research promotion), the former LM board members Werner Muhm and Wolfgang Nolz, Johanna Arco, art historians Daniela Gregori and Rainer Metzger, attorney Georg Zanger, actor Helmut Bohatsch, designer Alexander Rendi, Ines Ratz (Alfons Schilling estate and archive), and many others.

 

PREMIERE! THE COLLECTION OF THE OESTERREICHISCHE NATIONALBANK
24th Apr. 2026–11th Oct. 2026 I LEOPOLD MUSEUM, LEVEL -2

 

Exhibition page
Press material and printable images
Photo gallery of the exhibition opening

 

For questions, please contact:
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung
Press I Public Relations

Mag. Klaus Pokorny
T +43 1 525 70 - 1507

Mag. Maria Schneeweiß, BA MA
T +43 1 525 70 - 1541

presse@leopoldmuseum.org
leopoldmuseum.org

 

Back