Leopold Museum
Leopold Museum
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LocationVienna, Austria
Coordinates48°12′9″N 16°21′32″E / 48.20250°N 16.35889°E / 48.20250; 16.35889
TypeAustrian art

The Leopold Museum, housed in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria, is home to one of the largest collections of modern Austrian art, featuring artists such as Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Richard Gerstl.

It contains the world's largest Egon Schiele Collection.

The more than 5,000 exhibits collected by Elisabeth and Rudolf Leopold over five decades were consolidated in 1994 with the assistance of the Republic of Austria and the National Bank of Austria into the Leopold Museum Private Foundation. In 2001 the Leopold Museum was opened.[1]

The core of the collection consists of Austrian art of the first half of the 20th century, including key paintings and drawings by Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, showing the gradual transformation from the Wiener Secession, the Art Nouveau/Jugendstil movement in Austria to Expressionism. The historical context is illustrated by major Austrian works of art from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Controversy

Nazi-looted art

Egon Schiele, Portrait of Wally Neuzil

The Leopold Museum has been involved in numerous controversies concerning Nazi looted art. In 1997, a New York Times profile of Leopold described him as a "too passionate" collector, whose tough tactics had led him to keep Nazi looted art, including Schiele's Portrait of Wally, which had belonged to the Jewish art dealer Lea Bondi Jaray.[2] After many dramatic court actions, a settlement was finally reached after Dr. Leopold's death.[3] “Leopold knew the painting was stolen,” art lawyer Nicolas O’Donnell explained, “He had always known it. With his arrogance and pride out of the way, a real negotiation was possible.”[4]

In 2008, Austria's Green Party and the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG) publicly accused the museum of "holding art that was stolen by Nazis from Jewish owners" alleging that Houses on the Lake, 1914, by Egon Schiele, had been "stolen by the Nazis from Jewish owner Jenny Steiner".[5] In 2016 the museum reached a settlement concerning five works by Schiele with the heirs of Karl Maylaender, who died after being deported to a labor camp during World War Two.[6][7]

Naked Men

In 2012, following a public outcry, the museum's largest street posters for the Nackte Männer (English: Naked Men) exhibition by Ilse Haider, displaying one of the exhibition's most prominent artworks, entitled Vive la France (a depiction of three naked French footballers, with their genitals fully revealed: the first black, the second Arab/Muslim and the third white, by the French artists Pierre et Gilles), were amended by the artists themselves, by the addition of a red ribbon or stripe to cover the players' genitals.[8][9][10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Fox, Margalit. "Rudolf Leopold, Art Collector, Dies at 85", The New York Times, June 29, 2010. Accessed July 5, 2010.
  2. ↑ Dobrzynski, Judith H. (1997-12-24). "THE ZEALOUS COLLECTOR -- A special report.; A Singular Passion For Amassing Art, One Way or Another". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2010-03-28. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
  3. ↑ "The Return of "Wally": The Mona Lisa of the 20th Century". Jewish News From Austria. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
  4. ↑ Kaplan, Isaac (2017-07-05). "3 Cases That Explain Why Restituting Nazi-Looted Art Is So Difficult". Artsy. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
  5. ↑ "Leopold Museum in Vienna accused over Nazi-looted art". www.theartnewspaper.com. Archived from the original on 2020-10-19. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
  6. ↑ "Austrian museum reaches settlement over Nazi-looted artwork". Reuters. 2016-04-07. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
  7. ↑ "Leopold Museum Restitutes Schiele Watercolors - artnet News". 2016-04-11. Archived from the original on 2016-04-11. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
  8. ↑ Nude Males' Art Show At Leopold Museum Sparks Controversy: Then Sells Out... Publisher: The Huffington Post. Published: 01 November 2012. Retrieved: 05 April 2014.
  9. ↑ Vienna museum to cover nude male posters after outcry. Publisher: Reuters. Published: 17 October 2012. Retrieved: 05 April 2014.
  10. ↑ Skyring, Kerry. "Penis problem: A Vienna museum covers up". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
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