“Beauty and Abyss” in New York

06.07.2017

With an exclusive preview of the retrospective “Richard Gerstl” at the Neue Galerie in New York, the Leopold Museum Vienna and the Vienna tourist organization WienTourismus gave the media, the art world and the travel industry in New York a taste of Vienna’s upcoming commemorative year of 2018 with its theme of “Beauty and Abyss”.

From 29^th June to 25^th September, the Neue Galerie in New York – the leading museum for German and Austrian art in the US – is presenting works by the Viennese Expressionist Richard Gerstl. Two days before the official opening, the Leopold Museum Vienna, which acts as the presentation’s main lender, and WienTourismus invited guests to an exclusive preview. Among the approximately 100 guests were Wolfgang Waldner, the Austrian ambassador to the US, the Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, the collector’s son Diethard Leopold, Dominic Freud, the chairman of the Freud Foundation USA, the internationally renowned gallery owner and Schiele expert Jane Kallir, as well as the hostess, the Director of the Neue Galerie Renée Price.

First comprehensive exhibition of Gerstl’s oeuvre in the US

“The Leopold Museum houses not only the world’s largest Egon Schiele collection as well as masterpieces from the period of ‘Vienna around 1900’ by Gustav Klimt, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, among many others, but is also home to the most extensive collection of paintings by the Austrian early Expressionist Richard Gerstl. We are delighted to be able to support the first comprehensive presentation of Gerstl’s oeuvre in the US at the Neue Galerie as the exhibition’s main lender with 15 works. This exhibition in the heart of New York, at the most important museum for Austrian and German art of Classical Modernism, provides an ideal platform for introducing the upcoming themed commemorative year of 2018. For the Neue Galerie and the Leopold Museum have shared not only their art historical emphasis but also their passionate commitment to realizing high-quality exhibitions ever since both institutions’ inception in 2001,” according to the Leopold Museum’s Director Hans-Peter Wipplinger.

The preview aligned with the theme of Vienna’s 2018 commemorative year “Beauty and Abyss”. “The year 1918 marked the passing of four important protagonists of Viennese Modernism – Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Otto Wagner and Koloman Moser. The tourist organization WienTourismus has decided to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of their deaths in 2018 with a themed year under the motto ‘Beauty and Abyss’ to highlight the achievements of Viennese Modernism and their impact on the arts, literature, architecture, science and society,” explains the Director of WienTourismus Norbert Kettner. 14 special exhibitions on Viennese Modernism have already been fixed for 2018, including the Leopold Museum’s presentation “Egon Schiele. Expression and Lyricism“.

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