The Leopold Museum and Good Company

August 26^th, 2009

Today’s trip to the Leopold Museum was a nice change from the sadness that we encountered yesterday. Dr. O is probably one of the smartest women that I have ever had the pleasure of taking a tour from. She is extremely knowledgeable and well versed on so many different forms of art history, and she has lived in Wien for over 40 years.

The museum is located in the MuseumsQuartier of Wien, one of the ten largest cultural complexes in the world. The collection itself is the personal collection of Rudolf and Elisabeth Leopold who consolidated over 5,000 works into the museum. Both the website and Dr. O say that The Leopold contains “the largest Egon Schiele collection in the world, together with major works by Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Richard Gerstl, Albin Egger-Lienz, and paintings and prints by Herbert Boeckl, Hans Böhler, Anton Faistauer, Anton Kolig, Alfred Kubin, and Wilhelm Thöny.”

We focused a great deal on Gustav Klimt, one of the most well known artists in the world. He was born in to the Ringstraße project. He studied at the applied arts academy and studied to be a goldsmith. Klimt, when he applied for his first passport, put his occupation down as a decorator. He considered himself a decorator of buildings. The Ringstraße era ended with the university scandal, which in a nutshell was caused because his paintings were refused. This ended Klimt’s career as a Rinstrasse decorator and he became 1^st president of the Secession. Klimt went through 3 periods: The Ringstraße, his most famous art nouveau (where works with gold and silver) and then was influenced by young painters like Schiele and turned to painting portraits like The Bride. He likes intertwining features but now uses colors and more designs. In this style he moved away from gold and towards expressionism.

I like how Dr. O conducted the tour by allowing us to sit in front of the picture and answer her questions. This made the tour seem more engaging and allowed us to really look at all of the detail within the painting. While looking at Klimt’s Death and Life we definitely picked up some stragglers on the tour. She has one of those personalities where when she walks into a room people take notice. At first people might be taken aback by her, but when they hear what she is saying they tend to tune in! Death and Life was changed after five years to bring the element of death, the skeleton, closer to life.

Egon Schiele was also an artist that we spoke about in great length. He was a protégé of Klimt who led an incredibly difficult life. He paintings are incredibly intense and known for his twisted body shapes and perverse forms. They have distinct sense eroticism and pornographic characters. Schiele’s wife died of the Spanish Flu while pregnant with his child, and he followed shortly after.

One of the things that I enjoyed the most about my day at the museum was hanging out with Kathy and Dr. O after it was over. We drank coffee at a café and ate an amazing dinner at a really nice restaurant in the MuseumsQuartier. Kathy was nice enough to make this my “going away meal” since I was going to be leaving the trip before the final dinner. I had grilled lamb, potatoes and ratatouille. This was probably one of the best meals that I had while in Wien because of the conversation and the company. We talked a lot about politics, which is normally a no-no, but with Kathy is a given! Dr. O really impressed me in that she wanted to hear both sides of the Obama issues since her family on the east coast completely dogged him out. Kathy, who is wayyyyyy on the left, made sure to correct any confusion! ;)