Press Release Vienna 1900 Klimt, Schiele and their Times September 26, 2010 January 16, 2011 With the Vienna Secession and Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna around 1900 was one of the cradles of modern art. The Fondation Beyeler is mounting the first comprehensive exhibition ever to be devoted in Swizerland to this many-faceted theme. On view will be about 200 paintings, watercolors and drawings, supplemented by architectural models, furniture, textile designs, glass and silver objects, artists posters, and photographs. At the center of our exhibition of Viennese modernism stand the renowned ornamental portraits and landscapes of Gustav Klimt, the expressive figure depictions of Egon Schiele, and the legendary erotic drawings of both artists. Presented in addition will be works by the young Oskar Kokoschka, Richard Gerstl, and Arnold Schoenberg. Running like a thread through the exhibition is the idea of the gesamtkunstwerk, a leitmotif of the artists, artisans, and architects of the Vienna Secession and Wiener Werkstätte, as witnessed by models and drawings of key buildings and furniture designed by the major architects of the day including Otto Wagner, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos as much as by objects of applied art, especially those by Koloman Moser. The exhibition was organized by guest curator Barbara Steffen, Vienna, who previously curated Francis Bacon and the Tradition of Art (2004) at the Fondation Beyeler. The exhibition enjoys the special support of the Leopold Museum, the Albertina, the Kunsthaus Zug, Stiftung Sammlung Kamm, and the Belvedere, MAK, Neue Galerie New York, Wien Museum, and Wiener Secession. The catalogue, edited for the Fondation Beyeler by Barbara Steffen, is published in German and English by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern. It contains essays by distinguished experts: Christian Meyer (Schoenberg Center, Vienna), Franz Smola (), Barbara Steffen, Beate Susanne Wehr, Alfred Weidinger (Belvedere), and Richard Zettl (University of Applied Arts, Vienna), as well as a chronology by Michiko Kono (Fondation Beyeler assistant curator). 272 pages, with 289 illustrations, thereof 276 in colours; CHF 68, ISBN 978-3-905632-85-9 The exhibition is accompanied by a diverse program of films, music, cabaret and literature. An authentic Viennese coffee house will welcome visitors on the museum s lower floor. An additional Art Shop will present a special selection of Viennese products. An audio guide and reading table with relevant literature and catalogues will provide supplementary information, and a Viennese music CD listening pleasure. Cooperation partners are Vienna Tourism and Basel Tourism. Press images accessible at www.fondationbeyeler.ch/press-images Contact/Press Catherine Schott, tel. + 41 645 97 21, fax + 41 645 97 39, presse@fondationbeyeler.ch, Fondation Beyeler opening hours: 10 a.m. 6 p.m. daily, Wednesdays to 8 pm
Press Release Vienna 1900 Klimt, Schiele and their Times September 26, 2010 January 16, 2011 With the Vienna Secession and Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna around 1900 was one of the cradles of modern art. The Fondation Beyeler is mounting the first comprehensive exhibition ever devoted in Switzerland to this theme, curated by Barbara Steffen. On view will be about 200 paintings, watercolors and drawings, supplemented by architectural models, furniture, textile designs, glass and silver objects, artists posters, and photographs. At the center of our exhibition of Viennese modernism stand the renowned ornamental portraits and landscapes of Gustav Klimt, the expressive figure depictions of Egon Schiele, and the legendary erotic drawings of both artists. Presented in addition will be works by the young Oskar Kokoschka, Richard Gerstl, and Arnold Schoenberg. Running like a thread through the exhibition is the idea of the gesamtkunstwerk, a leitmotif of the artists, artisans, and architects of the Vienna Secession and Wiener Werkstätte, as witnessed by models and drawings of key buildings and furniture designed by the major architects of the day including Otto Wagner, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos as much as by objects of applied art, especially those by Koloman Moser. Vienna around 1900 The imperial and royal capital and residence city of Vienna formed the stage for a profound, epochal change at the end of the old and beginning of the new century. In those years, Vienna magnetically attracted people from all over the Austro-Hungarian monarchy to the bastion of visual arts, music, literature, applied art, and architecture. The artistic and intellectual climate in Vienna oscillated between tradition and new beginnings, faith in progress and apocalyptic gloom. Franz Kafka and the Viennese author Arthur Schnitzler projected a pessimistic view of the world. Otto Wagner in architecture, like Klimt in painting and Freud in science, embodied that profound change of paradigms that introduced essential impulses that were to influence the art of the following generations. The Vienna Secession The founding of the Vienna Secession (Association of Austrian Visual Artists) by Klimt, Hoffmann, Olbrich and other painters, sculptors and architects in 1897, set off a burgeoning of fine and applied art in the city that would last for two decades, and trigger the programmatic development of the interdisciplinary gesamtkunstwerk known as Viennese modernism. The Vienna Secession artists rejected the traditional, conservative and historicist definition of art that dominated the Künstlerhaus academy, and advocated public recognition of art on an international level. The concept of the gesamtkunstwerk was understood as a collaboration of fine and applied artists, including architects, on a basis of equality, an idea of design that transcended borderlines between fields, premised on the notion of subordinating every detail to the effect of the whole. Everyday life, in particular, was to be suffused with art.
The Exhibition The exhibition ranges from the founding of the Vienna Secession to the end of the First World War in 1918, the year of death of Klimt, Schiele, Wagner and Moser. The Secession exhibition building, erected in 1898 to plans by Olbrich (1867-1908), a striking structure with a golden, leaf-patterned cupola where the first Secession show took place that same year, became a Vienna landmark. It was also the site of Klimt s renowned Beethoven Frieze of 1902, a replica of which in the foyer forms the prelude to the Fondation Beyeler exhibition. On view in the first room are historical architectural models, artists posters and documents on the Secession, and a fan of leaves designed by all of its members. Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), first president of the Vienna Secession, was a gifted painter and draftsman and the key figure in the gesamtkunstwerk movement. Three exhibition rooms are devoted to around fifty of his paintings, drawings and sketches. Klimt s best-known motifs, apart from allegories, include his ornamental female portraits, of which the masterpieces Judith II (Salome; 1909), Water Nymphs (Silverfish; c. 1899), Goldfish (1901/02), and The Dancer (1916/18) are on view. The last-named painting embodies the quintessence of the artist s portraits of ladies: its flat composition, patterns of color, aesthetic-erotic atmosphere, and abstraction coupled with a standing female figure, already anticipate the art of the later twentieth century. A frequent motif of Klimt s landscapes was lake Attersee in the Salzkammergut, where he summered between 1900 and 1907. With well-nigh abstract color compositions like Attersee (1901) and The Park (1910 or earlier), he advanced in the direction of nonobjective art. Due to its innovative representation of space and plane, Approaching Thunderstorm (The Large Poplar II; 1903) is considered Klimt s most outstanding landscape. Klimt served as a mentor to younger artists such as Kokoschka and especially Schiele, though both were to develop in a different direction, turning away from the gesamtkunstwerk to adopt nascent Expressionism. Schiele s ties with Klimt and his admiration for him are reflected in his famous oil, The Hermits (1912), which represents the two as a double figure cloaked in a black coat. In contrast to Klimt, whose figures were always embedded in an abstract colored pattern, Schiele liberated himself from all aesthetization. He was interested in the true, indeed tormented human body and human sexuality. The exhibition brings together twenty important paintings (portraits and landscapes) and more than fifty of the extremely valuable works on paper by Schiele (1890-1918). Prematurely felled by the Spanish Flu, Schiele was a master of self-staging and psychological visualization. His famous selfdepictions, such as Self-Portrait with Lowered Head and Self-Portrait with Raised Bare Shoulder (both 1912), count among the major works of Expressionism. Schiele rejected the predominant classical idealization of the male body and had no scruples about addressing scandalous subject matter, as in the renowned painting Cardinal and Nun (Tenderness; 1912). A separate cabinet devoted to erotic art includes the great, sensual watercolors and drawings in which Schiele transcended the theme of the nude to represent unprecedented aspects of sexuality. Often the models assume eccentric poses, appearing isolated in an undifferentiated space. A public showing of these works was unthinkable in Vienna around 1900. In 1912, Schiele was taken to court for publicly displaying licentious erotic art. The majority of Klimt s drawings of women are done in pencil or charcoal sparingly highlighted with color, in which the female body is sketched with precise contours. Many of the drawings are explicitly erotic in nature. Unlike the comparable works of Schiele, rarely does a woman s direct gaze at the viewer disturb her sexual self-intimacy. Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), painter, printmaker and author, represented an Expressionism he understood as a universal movement. His portraits, done between 1907 and 1910 and absolutely unusual at the time, concentrate on head and torso, mostly depicted against an indeterminate
background. Out of the purely corporal shell Kokoschka liberates psychological aspects of human existence. Similarly to Schiele, Kokoschka focused especially on the position and gesture of hands. In Annunciation (c. 1911), an outstanding example of his religious art, the Bible story is combined with extreme gestures and body movements. The exhibition includes a famous Self-Portrait (1917) and other portraits, such as that of his partner and muse Alma Mahler and the composers Anton von Webern and Arnold Schoenberg. The dual talents of many Viennese modern artists and their relationship with music are reflected especially in the work of the composer Schoenberg (1874-1951), whose oeuvre holds a special place in Viennese art of the early twentieth century. It comprises self-portraits, landscapes and painterly visions that are concerned with the human gaze and image. The exhibition includes a series of Schoenberg s major works. A fascination with one s own gaze, veritably programmatically expressed in Gaze (1910), also served Schiele, Kokoschka, and Gerstl to reveal their inmost selves. Richard Gerstl (1883-1908) had an affair with the wife of his friend Schoenberg, Mathilde Schoenberg, and portrayed her several times. Among Gerstl s most important works is Group Portrait with Schoenberg (1907), whose impulsive paint handling stands in contrast to the Secessionists focus on aesthetics and beauty. In his famous Semi-Nude Self-Portrait (1904/05) Gerstl depicts himself as a messianic figure, quoting formal and substantial elements of depictions of Christ to convey his self-image as an artist. Similarly to Schiele, his self-portraits are characterized by a strong narcissicm and unleashed expressiveness. The Wiener Werkstätte The Wiener Werkstätte, a production commune of visual artists and artisans, was founded in 1903 by the entrepreneur Fritz Waerndorfer, its leading light Koloman Moser, and Josef Hoffmann. Modelled along the lines of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, the aim of the shop, which collaborated with the Secession and Vienna School of Decorative Arts, was to expand the definition of art to include the crafts. The Werkstätte s love of experiment and the high demands it made on quality had a style-shaping influence, both on architecture and on the implements of daily life. Wardrobes, desks, chests of drawers, lighting fixtures, chairs and tables were produced, along with entire interiors, fashions, jewelry, glass, silver objects, and book designs. The oeuvre of Koloman Moser (1868-1918), active as a painter, graphic artist, furniture designer, artisan, stage set and exhibition designer, represents a gesamtkunstwerk in itself. His painting extended from landscapes in intense colors to portraits and figure depictions. Mostly portrayed frontally or in profile, the sitters have a rather stiff appearance, as if frozen in the midst of a dynamic movement. Significant Moser works in the exhibition, alongside numerous examples of applied art, are the paintings Venus in the Grotto (c. 1914) and Two Girls (c. 1913/15). An example of extraordinary design and artistic treatment are his Buffet cabinet and picture frame (1900/1901 02) titled The Abundant Catch, which Moser showed in 1910 at the eighth Secession exhibition. An outstanding example of the idea of the interdisciplinary work of art put into practice is the cabaret Fledermaus (Bat; 1907), conceived by Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) and extensively documented in the exhibition, every facet of which, from interior to furniture, tableware and program brochure, was designed by Hoffmann himself. Chairs, cabinets, silver and glass objects, and an architectural model of the Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1904) attest to the the artist s wideranging creative activity. Otto Wagner (1841-1918) taught architecture at the Academy of Visual Arts. This Wagner school produced famous architects like Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich and Adolf Loos, whose names alone cover an essential part of building in Vienna around 1900. Wagner s prime motive in architectural design was functionality, which included the use of modern materials like steel and aluminum. In his pathbreaking Postal Savings Bank (1904-06), apart from reinforced concrete and marble, he employed aluminum both as a design element on the outer cladding and as a structural
material. Wagner also conceived the entire interior furnishings of the building, defining hierarchical structures by means of a precise use of materials and a conscious formal language. Among his further well-known buildings is St. Leopold s Church am Steinhof (1905/06), whose side windows were designed by Moser. Both structures are exhibited in the form of architectural models. Adolf Loos (1870-1933), a committed opponent of the Vienna Secession, postulated the functional, simple and lucid in architecture and utilitarian objects, something that extended to interiors as well. He became a groundbreaker for modern architecture as a whole. Loos s famous residence on Michaelerplatz (1909-11) opposite the Imperial Court Building, a model of which is on view in the exhibition, caused a scandal on account of its facade, stripped of all ornamentation. Subsequent Developments The vital creativity of the artists active in Vienna around 1900, their supplanting of ornamental Art Nouveau by a clear, functional style, and the rapprochement between fine and applied art manifested especially in the Wiener Werkstätte and the source of the gesamtkunstwerk idea had a lasting influence on the development of art. The close cooperation among the artists encompasssed a new definition of interdisciplinary art which would be ramified at the Bauhaus and in the De Stijl movement. The effects of the gesamtkunstwerk can in fact be traced down to the present day, the strict line between high and low art having by now well-nigh disappeared. Such contemporary projects as those of the architects Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Gio Ponti, and the artists Tobias Rehberger, Jorge Pardo and Takashi Murakami, reflect continuations of the gesamtkunstwerk idea. The exhibition has been especially enriched by eighty loans from the Leopold Museum, which harbors the largest Egon Schiele collection worldwide. The Albertina in Vienna, with one of the most significant and extensive collection of prints and drawings in the world, has lent forty drawings. From the Kunsthaus Zug, Stiftung Sammlung Kamm, the most important collection of Viennese modern works outside Austria, come fifty loans. Further distinguished lenders in Vienna are the Belvedere and the MAK Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, the Wien Museum, the Vienna Secession, and the Schoenberg Center, the BA-CA Kunstforum Wien, and the University of Applied Arts. Further generous support was provided by the Neue Galerie, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, all New York; the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, the Galleria Internazionale d Arte Moderna di Ca Pesaro, Venice; the Kunstmuseum Basel, Kunsthaus Zurich, and Kunstmuseum Bern. The exhibition was conceived by guest curator Barbara Steffen. From 1988 to 1992 Ms. Steffen was assistant curator at the Eli Broad Foundation, Los Angeles, from 1992 to 1998 head of European projects at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and from 2006 to 2008 curator of contemporary art at the Albertina, Vienna. Her major exhibitions include the Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Albertina (2008), Francis Bacon and the Tradition of Art at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2003-04), and Visions of America The Ileana Sonnabend Collection at the Essl Museum, outside Vienna. She has been awarded the Maecenas art sponsoring prize in 2000, and the Gustav Klimt Prize in 1998. Ms. Steffen currently resides in Vienna. The catalogue, edited for the Fondation Beyeler by Barbara Steffen, is published in German and English by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern. It contains essays by distinguished experts: Christian Meyer (Schoenberg Center, Vienna), Franz Smola (), Barbara Steffen, Beate Susanne Wehr, Alfred Weidinger (Belvedere), and Richard Zettl (University of Applied Arts, Vienna), as well as a chronology by Michiko Kono (Fondation Beyeler assistant curator). 272 pages, 289 illustrations, thereof 276 full-color illustrations, CHF 68, ISBN 978-3-905632-85-9. Responsible for exhibition design was Dieter Thiel. The exhibition is accompanied by a diverse program of films, music and literature. An authentic Viennese coffee house will welcome visitors on the museum s lower floor. An additional Art Shop
will present a special selection of Viennese products. An audio guide and reading table with relevant literature and catalogues will provide supplementary information, and a Viennese music CD listening pleasure. Cooperation partners are Vienna Tourism and Basel Tourism. Press images accessible at www.fondationbeyeler.ch/press-images Contact/Press Catherine Schott, tel. + 41 645 97 21, fax + 41 645 97 39, presse@fondationbeyeler.ch, www.fondationbeyeler.ch, Fondation Beyeler, Beyeler Museum AG, Baselstrasse 77, CH-4125 Riehen, Switzerland Fondation Beyeler opening hours: 10 am 6 pm daily, Wednesdays to 8 pm
Vienna 1900 Klimt, Schiele and their Times September 26, 2010 January 16, 2011 01. Gustav Klimt Judith II (Salome), 1909 Oil on canvas, without frame 176 x 46 cm Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Galleria Internazionale d Arte Modernadi Ca Pesaro 02. Gustav Klimt The Dancer, ca. 1916 18 Oil on canvas, 180 x 90 cm Private collection Courtesy of Neue Galerie, New York 03. Gustav Klimt Goldfish, 1901/02 Oil on canvas, 181 x 67 cm Kunstmuseum Solothurn Dübi-Müller-Stiftung 04. Gustav Klimt Approaching Thunderstorm (The Large Poplar II), 1903 Oil on canvas, 100.8 x 100.7 cm 05. Gustav Klimt Attersee, 1901 Oil on canvas, 80,2 x 80,2 cm 06. Gustav Klimt The Park, 1910 or earlier Oil on canvas, 110.4 x 110.4 cm Museum of Modern Art, New York Gertrud A. Mellon Fund 2010. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence 07. Gustav Klimt Reclining Nude Lying on Her Stomach and Facing Right, 1910 Pencil, blue and red crayon, and white heightening, 37 x 56 cm Collection E.W.K., Bern Photo: Peter Lauri, Bern 08. Egon Schiele Self-Portrait with Hands on Chest, 1910 Charcoal, watercolor, and opaque white, 44.8 x 31.2 cm Kunsthaus Zug, Stiftung Sammlung Kamm 09. Egon Schiele Self-Portrait with Lowered Head, 1912 Oil on wood, 42.2 x 33.7 cm 10. Egon Schiele Two Girls Lying Entwined, 1915 Pencil and opaque color, 32.5 x 49.5 cm Albertina, Vienna / www.albertina.at Photo: Peter Ertl 11. Egon Schiele Mother and Child, 1910 Pencil, watercolor, gouache and opaque white, 55.7 x 36.7 cm Private collection Courtesy of Richard Nagy Ltd, London 12. Egon Schiele Moa, 1911 Pencil, Watercolor, and opaque color, 47.8 x 31.5 cm Press images www.fondationbeyeler.ch/press-images This visual material may be used for press purposes only. Reproduction is permitted for the duration of the exhibition only. Please employ the captions as given and the relevant copyrights. We kindly request you to forward us a voucher copy. FONDATION BEYELER
Vienna 1900 Klimt, Schiele and their Times September 26, 2010 January 16, 2011 13. Egon Schiele Cardinal and Nun (Tenderness), 1912 Oil on canvas, 70 x 80.5 cm 14. Egon Schiele Edith Schiele in Striped Dress, Seated, 1915 Pencil and gouache, 50.8 x 40.2 cm 15. Egon Schiele Houses and Colorful Laundry (Two Blocks of Houses with Clotheslines), 1914 Oil on canvas, 100 x 120.7 cm 16. Richard Gerstl Semi-Nude Self-Portrait, 1904/05 Oil on canvas, 159 x 109 cm 17. Oskar Kokoschka Self-Portrait, 1917 Oil on canvas, 79 x 63 cm Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal Fondation Oskar Kokoschka/ 2010, ProLitteris, Zurich 18. Arnold Schönberg Gaze, 1910 Oil on card, 32.2 24.6 cm Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna 2010, ProLitteris, Zurich 19. Oskar Kokoschka Skirt for Lilith Lang, 1907/08 Overskirt: cream-colored linen with applications in black wool and black glass beads; underskirt: beige/black striped raw silk pleated, green silk ribbon, waist circ. 80 cm, hem w. 160 cm, l. 84.5 cm Universität für angewandte Kunst Vienna, Kostüm- und Modesammlung Fondation Oskar Kokoschka/ 2010, ProLitteris, Zurich 20. Carl Otto Czeschka Silver Vitrine, 1908 Silver, semi-precious stones, and enamel, 161.5 x 61 x 33 cm Made by Wiener Werkstätte Private collection, Courtesy of Richard Nagy Ltd, London 21. Koloman Moser Zebra Cabinet, before 1904 Rosewood and satinwood, with inlays of rosewood, maple and mother-of-pearl, 138.5 x 98.8 x 49.5 cm Made by Wiener Werkstätte Kunsthaus Zug, Stiftung Sammlung Kamm 22. Josef Hoffmann Sitzmaschine (Machine for Sitting In), from 1906 Beech wood and plywood, stained to look like mahogany, with upholstery, adjustable back, 110 x 68.5 x 82.5 cm Made by J. & J. Kohn, Vienna, model 670 Kunsthaus Zug, Stiftung Sammlung Kamm Ottiger Fotografie Zug 23. Friedrich Strauss View of the Secession Exhibition Building from Gemüsemarkt, 1899 11 x 15,5 cm, Wien Museum Press images www.fondationbeyeler.ch/press-images This visual material may be used for press purposes only. Reproduction is permitted for the duration of the exhibition only. Please employ the captions as given and the relevant copyrights. We kindly request you to forward us a voucher copy. FONDATION BEYELER
Chronology Gustav Klimt 1862 1918 1862 Gustav Klimt is born on July 14 at Baumgarten, near Vienna. 1876 Klimt, aged only 14, begins attending the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) in Vienna. 1891 Klimt joins the Genossenschaft der bildenden Künstler Wiens (Fine Artists Cooperative of Vienna), generally known as the Künstlerhaus. 1897 The constituent assembly of the Vereinigung bildender Künstler Österreichs (Association of Austrian Fine Artists, which subsequently adds the words Secession Wien [Vienna Secession] to its name) takes place on April 3. In May several of its members leave the Künstlerhaus cooperative, among them Olbrich, Hoffmann, and Klimt, who is elected first president of the association. 1898 The first Secession exhibition opens on March 25 in the building of the Gartenbaugesellschaft (Horticultural Society). 1900 At the Secession Klimt exhibits landscapes and Philosophy, one of his faculty paintings for Vienna University. The latter arouses violent protest, but at the Exposition Universelle in Paris he receives a gold medal for it. 1902 The Secession mounts the Beethoven exhibition, intended as a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art). 1905 The Klimt group (Klimt, Hoffmann, Moser, Wagner, and others) leaves the Secession, which thus loses its most important artists. 1908 Members of the Klimt group show work at the Kunstschau Vienna 1908, an exhibition featuring a large number of artists and encompassing all genres of visual art. 1910 Returning to Vienna from trips to Prague, Paris, and Spain, Klimt relinquishes his gold style. He takes part in the Venice Biennale. 1911 Work by the Wiener Werkstätte and by Klimt is shown in the Austrian pavilion at the Esposizione internazionale d arte (International Art Exhibition) in Rome. 1912 Klimt becomes president of the Österreichischen Künstlerbund (Austrian Artists League), founded in 1906. 1917 Klimt is made an honorary member of the Akademie der bildenden Künste after the ministry of education refuses for a fourth time to appoint him to a professorship there. 1918 Klimt dies from a stroke on February 6 in Vienna. He leaves behind numerous unfinished paintings.
Egon Schiele 1890 1918 1890 Egon Schiele is born on June 12 at Tulln, Lower Austria. 1906 Schiele begins studying at the Akademie der bildenden Künste under Christian Griepenkerl. 1907 Schiele gets to know Klimt an occurrence far more important to him than his studies at the Akademie. The friendship between the two artists, who are united by mutual admiration, lasts for the rest of their lives. 1909 At the Internationale Kunstschau 1909 works by Klimt and Schiele are shown. Through the Kunstschau Schiele meets Hoffmann, who introduces him to the Wiener Werkstätte. Schiele leaves the Akademie der bildenden Künste and, together with such like-minded spirits as Erwin Dominik Osen and Anton Peschka, establishes the Neukunstgruppe (New Art Group), whose president he becomes. 1910 Railroad official Heinrich Benesch (1862 1947) becomes the leading collector of drawings and watercolors by Schiele (his collection now forms a substantial part of the Albertina s Schiele holdings). 1911 Schiele moves to Krumau (now Czech Republic), his mother s home town. There he creates a number of major townscapes. The local population objects to his unconventional lifestyle and Schiele moves to Neulengbach, near Vienna. 1912 Schiele paints Die Eremiten (The Hermits), a double portrait of Klimt and himself. In April Schiele is remanded in custody in Neulengbach on a false charge of abducting a minor. He is subsequently sentenced to three days detention for circulating indecent drawings. The sentence is tacked on to the 21 days he has already spent in custody. 1913 With Klimt s support Schiele is admitted to the Österreichischen Künstlerbund. 1915 On June 17 Schiele marries his neighbor Edith Harms. A few days later he is drafted into the army. He is made to escort Russian prisoners of war in Lower Austria and does portraits of them and of his superiors. 1917 Schiele is posted to Vienna, where he starts to produce a large number of portrait paintings and drawings. 1918 At the 49th Secession exhibition in March Schiele has his first real artistic and financial success. Edith Schiele, six months pregnant, dies on October 28 of Spanish influenza; Three days later, on October 31, the 28-year-old Egon Schiele follows her.
Citations It cannot possibly be enough for us to purchase pictures, no matter how magnificent they are. As long as our cities, our houses, our rooms, our cabinets, our instruments, our clothes, and our jewelry, as long as our language and our feelings do not typify the spirit of our own time in an unadorned, simple, and beautiful way we are infinitely far behind our ancestors, and no lie can deceive us about all these weaknesses. (Josef Hoffmann) We were sitting at noon in the Café Heinrichshof with Otto Wagner, Kolo[man] Moser, some friends, and Fritz Wärndorfer. Moser and I were complaining bitterly about the state of art in Vienna. Nothing was moving forward. All over Europe consciences were stirring; Vienna seemed to us moldering and rotten. Everywhere workshops were being set up with the aim of putting an end to endless stylistic imitation and attempting to find forms appropriate to our times. (Josef Hoffmann) We define the term artist as broadly as the term work of art. We use it not only for those who create, but also for those who enjoy, those capable of reliving emotionally what has been created and of appreciating it. For us, the world of artists signifies an ideal community of all those who create and enjoy. (Gustav Klimt, Speech at the opening of the Kunstschau Wien 1908) Inhibiting the artist is a crime, it means murdering budding life! (Egon Schiele, April 23, 1912) Every formal procedure which aspires to traditional effects is not completely free from conscious motivation. But art belongs to the unconscious! One must express oneself! Express oneself directly! Not one s taste, or one s upbringing, or one s intelligence, knowledge, or skill. Not all these acquired characteristics, but that which is inborn, instinctive. (Arnold Schoenberg, Letter to Wassily Kandinsky, January 24, 1911) Consider the following situation: everyone is wearing clothing that belongs to a past age or to an imaginary distant future. There would be men from the gray mists of antiquity, women with towering hairdos and hoop skirts, elegant gentlemen in Burgundian hoses. And then a man joins them in a simple frock coat. Wouldn t he be conspicuous? And wouldn t the police be called in to do their job of removing anything that causes offence? (Adolf Loos, Architektur (lecture, written in 1910))
Supplementary Exhibition Events VIENNA 1900 Klimt, Schiele and their Times Exhibition Program Vienna Soiree Friday, October 1, November 5, December 3, 2010 and January 7, 2011, 6 to 9 pm Reduced admission and free admission for young people to age 25 On these days the museum will remain open until 9 pm. Sunday Matinees Concerts with Soloists of the Chamber Orchestra Basel Sunday, October 3, 2010, 11.30 am Program 1: Verklärte Nacht (Enchanted Night), Eung Kwang Lee, baritone Franz Schreker, The Wind (1909) Gustav Mahler (arrangement by Arnold Schoenberg and Erwin Stein), Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of an Itinerant Journeyman) Arnold Schoenberg, Enchanted Night Sunday, December 12, 2010, 11.30 am Program 2: Watschenkonzert, Sylvia Nopper, soprano Alexander von Zemlinsky (arrangement by Erwin Stein), two lieder based on poems by Maurice Maeterlinck Alban Berg (arrangement by Reinbert de Leeuw), seven lieder Arnold Schoenberg (arrangement by Anton Webern), Chamber Symphony op. 9 Sunday, January 9, 2011, 11.30 am Program 3: Reigen (Round Dance) Viennese songs and waltzes Herr Ober beichten...! an evening with Wolfram Berger Tuesday, November 30, 2010, 7.30 pm Texts and songs from the Viennese soul, on Egon Schiele, Anton Kuh, Peter Altenberg, Karl Kraus, Alfred Polgar, et al. WOMEN, DELUSION AND VIENNA Saturday, January 15, 2011, from 10 pm Literary night with texts, stories, figures and fates, on hate, love, life and death after the beginning and before the end of 1900 Co-production of WINTERGÄSTE 2010/11 season, directed by Niggi Ulrich, produced by kulturelles.bl / Burghof GmbH, Lörrach All admission tickets for events at the Fondation Beyeler entitle the holder to view the exhibition before the event.
Viennese Coffee House and Restaurant Coffee, cake and delicious snacks are on offer in the Viennese Coffee House installed specially for the Fondation Beyeler exhibition (no reservations accepted). For lunch and dinner we recommend our Restaurant Berower Park. Art Appreciation Public Tours and Events Daily program at www.fondationbeyeler.ch/veranstaltungen Private Tours for Groups Tel. + 41 (0)61 645 97 20, fuehrungen@fondationbeyeler.ch Audio Guides German, French, English CHF 8.00 / Art Club Members CHF 5.00 Offer for Schools Information and registration at www.fondationbeyeler.ch/kunstvermittlung Online Ticketing and Admissions for Events at www.fondationbeyeler.ch Or advanced ticket sales at the museum
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