Leopold Collection Visits the Gauermann Museum

13.05.2014

Exhibition of Friedrich Gauermann’s Biedermeier masterpieces in the artist’s hometown

Vienna – From the 17th of May 2014 a representative selection of works by Friedrich Gauermann from the ViennaLeopold Museum will be shown for the first time at the Gauermann Museum. Leopold Museum Director Dr. Franz Smola: "Friedrich Gauermann (Miesenbach/Scheuchenstein 1807 - 1862 Vienna) is amongst the most eminent Austrian landscape and genre painters of the 19th century and features in the Leopold Collection with important works. The Leopold Museum is home to a total number of 30 oil paintings, original graphic works and prints from all periods of the artist’s oeuvre”. Franz Smola: "We are delighted about the cooperation with the Gauermann Museum and the Kunst- und Kulturverein Gauermann [Art and Cultural Association Gauermann]. I would like to thank the association’s chairman Mag. Andreas Enne and the artist Bernhard Kratzig for the supervision of the project and the hanging of the artworks".

LeopoldMuseum as lender, internationally and within Austria

The masterpieceshoused by the Leopold Museum are highly sought after as loans all around the world. Since the foundation’s inception, the collection has traveled to numerous important cities, including New York, Milan, Athens, Oslo, Hannover, Hamburg and Budapest. In the autumn, eminent works by Egon Schiele will be shown at the Kunsthaus Zürich and the London Courtauld Institute. Additionally, the Leopold Museum Private Foundation frequently supports Austrian museums and institutions with select loans, including regular contributions to the Gustav Klimt Center on the Attersee launched in 2012 in cooperation with the Leopold Museum.

Schielecollector Rudolf Leopold: comprehensive collection of 19th century Austrian art

The collector and founder of the LeopoldMuseum Prof. Rudolf Leopold (1925-2010) cherished not only the works of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka and Richard Gerstl but right from the beginning also focused on 19th century Austrian painting. During his five decades as a collector he acquired paintings by Friedrich Gauermann, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Anton Romako, Carl Schuch and Emil Jakob Schindler.

Elisabeth Leopold: Rudolf Leopold, an ardent observer of nature, fascinated by landscape artists

Following his experience of the Old Masters Vermeer, Velazquez and Rubens at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which roused the young Rudolf Leopold’s passion for art, he was at first especially taken with Austrian landscape art. Dr. Elisabeth Leopold: "As an ardent observer of nature, who liked to go on extended walks, Rudolf Leopold was fascinated by the comparison between nature and the landscape artists’ esthetizising view of nature. He studied the painters’ hand with great interest and delighted in the incredible variety of moods captured on canvas and on paper, in the depictions of atmospheres, of light and of the battle of man and animals with the forces of nature”.

LeopoldMuseum Director Franz Smola: Gauermann’s oeuvre represented in the Leopold Collection in all its facets

According to Franz Smola "Friedrich Gauermann’s oeuvre is represented at the Leopold Museum in all its facets", especially with regards his nature depictions. Smola: "The undisputed highlight of our Gauermann collection is the painting "Returning Home before the Storm" (1845). It is an outstanding masterpiece within the museum’s extensive collection of works from the Biedermeier period". Gauermann depicted the theme in numerous further versions, making it arguably his most popular motif. The Leopold Museum houses another depiction with a similar theme, the 1849 painting "Alpine Pasture (Study)", in which Gauermann once again managed to masterfully capture a rainy sky with threatening thunder clouds.

The work "At the Monastery Fountain", by contrast, shows a calm and tranquil scene. The marvelous genre depiction enchants with its wonderful atmosphere created by rays of mild sunlight streaming through the trees’ branches. The water of the fountain topped with a statue of the Virgin Mary in front of the Gothic church provides refreshment to both people and animals.

Three further renderings, which exclusively depict nature motifs, stand out from the selection of works by Gauermann from the Leopold Collection. Two of them show trees in a rocky landscape meticulously true to nature in their depiction, while the third shows a rocky massif. Such pure nature scenes, which feature neither genre nor animal depictions, are very rare in Gauermann’s oeuvre. However, Friedrich Gauermann’s renderings of this sort were groundbreaking for the development of autonomous nature depictions, which were to become an essential hallmark of Atmospheric Realism throughout subsequent decades.

The exhibition THE LEOPOLD MUSEUM VISITS

The exhibition “THE LEOPOLD MUSEUM VISITS: Friedrich GAUERMANN. MASTERPIECES from the Leopold Collection” is shown from the 17th of May 2014 to the 17th of May 2015 at the Gauermann Museum situated close to Wiener Neustadt in Miesenbach/Scheuchenstein near Piesting, the hometown of Friedrich Gauermann. The opening of the exhibition took place on Saturday, the 17th of May 2014 and included speeches by the Mayor of Miesenbach Wolfgang Stückler, Dr. Elisabeth Leopold, member of the Board of Directors of the Leopold Museum Private Foundation as well as Dr. Franz Smola, Director of the Leopold Museum. The exhibition was opened by Landesrätin Dr. Petra Bohuslav on behalf of Landeshauptmann Dr. Erwin Pröll.

Special offer Gauermann Museum and Leopold Museum

A valid exhibition ticket for the Gauermann Museum reduces the admission to the Leopold Museum from 12 Euros per ticket to 10 Euros. A valid ticket for the Leopold Museum allows holders to visit the Gauermann Museum for 3.50 Euros instead of 5 Euros per ticket.

The Leopold Museum Visits: Friedrich Gauermann 1807-1862 Gauermann Museum, Miesenbach Scheuchenstein 127, 2761 Miesenbach 17th of May 2014 to 17th of May 2015 http://www.miesenbach.at/gauermannmuseum/

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