Lentos Art Museum

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Lentos Art Museum
Lentos tag.jpg
Lentos Art Museum Linz
Lentos Art Museum is located in Austria
Lentos Art Museum
Location within Austria
EstablishedMay 2003 (2003-05)
LocationLinz, Austria
Coordinates48°18′31″N 14°17′22″E / 48.30861°N 14.28944°E / 48.30861; 14.28944Coordinates: 48°18′31″N 14°17′22″E / 48.30861°N 14.28944°E / 48.30861; 14.28944
TypeArt Museum
CollectionsModern art
ArchitectWeber & Hofer
Websitewww.lentos.at
Lentos at night

The Lentos Art Museum is a museum of modern art in Linz, Austria. It opened in May 2003 as the successor of the Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz (New Gallery of the City of Linz).

The museum building was designed by the Zurich architects Weber & Hofer. It is 130 meters long, provides approximately 8000 m2 for use, and has a transparent glass facade, illuminated at night. It is located directly on the Danube between the Nibelungen Bridge and Brucknerhaus.

History[]

120 important art works from the collection of the Berlin art dealer Wolfgang Gurlitt (1888–1965), including paintings and graphic works by Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Nolde, Corinth and Pechstein, formed the foundation of the collection of the New Gallery of the City of Linz after World War II.[1] Building on these holdings, the city of Linz decided in 1953 to continue the New Gallery as a city museum with an active exhibition program and acquisition policies, and in 1998 to build the Lentos Museum, which opened in May 2003. Lentos seeks to present significant themes and issues of contemporary art in relation to 20th-century art history. And so on... This is exemplified by displaying works and schools of modern art and their consequences, whereby the Lentos collection is highlighted in specific selections according to alternating focal points. Exhibitions of loaned works of 20th century museum art regularly augment the program and communicate a sense of the genealogy of today's art. Ongoing exhibitions are enhanced by a lively program of events, tours, workshops for children and much more.

The collection[]

The art museum collection comprises around 1500 works from the areas of painting, sculpture and object art, over 10,000 works on paper, and about 850 photographs, including significant contributions to the development of artistic photography (A. Rodtschenko, Man Ray, H. Bayer). The earliest works among the museum's holdings are from the first half of the 19th century (C. D. Friedrich, J. B. Reiter). From the area of classical modernism the Lentos collection includes important paintings by Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Corinth and Pechstein. The collection also covers the inter-war period with works from German and Austrian Expressionism and Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). The period after 1945 is exemplified with outstanding works and ensembles of international art, including paintings, sculptures and graphic works by Appel, Nay, Warhol, Haring, Lassnig, Lüpertz, Rainer, Chillida, Cragg, Helnwein, Scully, Caro, Export, Krystufek, Merwart and others.

Internationality of the sculpture collection[]

The sculpture collection holdings are continuously expanded through active acquisition policies. Since May 2004 the Viennese curator, critic and journalist has been the director of the Lentos Art museum. In addition to the existing collection, modern art and the most current trends in contemporary art are presented in changing exhibitions.

Nazi-looted art and provenance research[]

For the Lentos Museum of Art the legacy of the Gurlitt Collection is "as brilliant as it is problematic".[2] Wolfgang Gurlitt, a close contact of the director of the Hitler Führermuseum, Hermann Voss, was investigated for Nazi art looting in 1946, along with other members of the Gurlitt family.[3][4] Wolfgang Gurlitt's art collection, which the museum purchased in, included artworks that had been looted by Nazis from Jewish collectors.[5] The museum undertook provenance research to establish the origins and ownership history of the collection and the city of Linz created a dedicated provenance working group in 2007.[6] As of 2019, 64 works of art had been investigated, of which 13 paintings were found to have looted art. Artworks restituted to the families of the Jewish collectors plundered by the Nazis include:[7]

  • 1999: Lesser Ury, Die Näherin [The seamstress] (Inv. no. 138)
  • 2003: Egon Schiele, Stadt am Fluss [Town on the river] (Inv. no. 13) restituted to the heirs of [8]
  • 2009: Gustav Klimt, Damenbildnis [Portrait of a lady] (Inv. no. 149) restituted to the heirs of [9]
  • 2011: Wilhelm Trübner, Bildnis Carl Schuh [Portrait of Carl Schuh] (Inv. no. 104) Settlement with the heirs of Harry Fuld
  • 2012: 6 paintings by Anton Romako: Mädchen mit aufgestütztem Arm (Tochter des Künstlers), 1875, Inv. no. 10; Der Zweikampf (Kämpfende Ritter), Inv. no. 81; Zigeunerlager, Inv. no. 83; Mädchen mit Früchten, um 1875, Inv. no. 103; Ungarische Puszta (Strohschober in Bálványos), about1880, Inv. no. 104; Bildnis Karl Schwach, 1854, Inv. no. 145 restituted to the heirs of (on loan to the Lentos)[10]
  • 2015: Lovis Corinth, Othello (Der Mohr), 1894, (Inv. Nr. 23) and Lovis Corinth, Schwabing (Blick aus dem Atelierfenster), 1891, (Inv. Nr. 24) restituted to the heirs of
  • 2015: Emil Nolde, Maiwiese (Maienwiese) [Meadow in May], 1915, (Inv. Nr. 94) restituted to the heirs of [11]

Not all the artworks have been verified yet and provenance research continues.

Bibliography[]

  • Van Uffelen, Chris. Contemporary Museums - Architecture, History, Collections, Braun Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-3-03768-067-4, pages 146-149.

External links[]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Research and documentation of provenance of the ?Gurlitt Collection? of the City of Linz 1, Spoils of War. Special Edition Magdeburg Conference 2001" (PDF). kulturgutverluste.de. pp. 45–46. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-01-20. The term "Gurlitt Collection" refers to a significant part of the licensed art dealer Wolfgang Gurlitt’s collection, which was sold by him to the City of Linz on January 14, 1953. This collection in Gurlitt's possession, consisting of 76 oil paintings and 33 prints, mainly by German artists from the 19th and 20th centuries, a further 30 oil paintings and 426 prints as well as the extensive Kubin Collection made up the basis of the "New Gallery of the City of Linz – Wolfgang Gurlitt Museum".
  2. ^ "Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz - WOLFGANG GURLITT. FAIRY PRINCE". www.lentos.at. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  3. ^ "Art Looting Intelligence Unit (ALIU) Reports 1945-1946 and ALIU Red Flag Names List and Index". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  4. ^ Dittmar, Peter (2013-11-04). "Raubkunst: Die Gurlitts, ein deutscher Kunsthändler-Clan". DIE WELT. Archived from the original on 2013-11-11. Retrieved 2021-06-07.
  5. ^ "Austrian exhibition to reveal story of Wolfgang Gurlitt, art dealer for the Nazis turned museum director". www.theartnewspaper.com. Archived from the original on 2019-03-21. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  6. ^ "Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz - Provenance research". www.lentos.at. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  7. ^ "Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz - Provenance research" (PDF). www.lentos.at. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  8. ^ Artdaily. "Sotheby's to Sell Restituted Masterpiece by Egon Schiele". artdaily.cc. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  9. ^ "Heirs of Nazi victim to sell restituted Klimt". Reuters. 2010-05-28. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  10. ^ "Linz restitutes Nazi Looted Art Again" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-06-06.
  11. ^ "Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz - Provenance research". www.lentos.at. Archived from the original on 2021-05-17. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
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