In New York, an exhibition on modern Austrian and German art

With the reopening of New York to its tourists, the holding of the great exhibition “Modern Worlds: Austrian and German Art, 1890-1940” (modern worlds, Austrian and German art) is the other big news from Big Apple. Inaugurated on November 11, it is breathtakingly rich, offering in the mansion of the Neue Galerie, in the Upper East side, along the 5th avenue, major works of modern art in the German-speaking. Their great beauty is enhanced by a very successful scenography, in particular thanks to the walls painted in strong colors.

Gabriel Münter “Woman in Garden”

Gustav Klimt, Carl Moll and Egon Schiele, the Austrians

Presented on the second floor, the Austrian collection is first dominated by his extraordinary Gustav Klimt, including the very famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer from 1907, which a lawsuit wrested from the Vienna museum at the end of the 1990s, as recounted in the film “La femme au tableau” (Woman in Gold). Also by Klimt, The Dancer (La danseuse 1916-17) is one of the most cheerful oils that the master has produced. Another masterpiece, White Interior (The White Interior, 1905) by Carl Moll, vividly evokes the Vienna of 1900, as well as the fascination for the arts of Japan, such as the desire to depict everyday life. Also Austrian, Egon Schiele is represented by a rich selection of works on paper and by a late painting: the very beautiful landscape of 1917, “City in the green”.

Carl Moll, White Interior

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Otto Dix, the Germans

On the third floor, in a festival of fawn colors, rare canvases from the two German avant-garde movements are exhibited: die Brücke (Le Pont) and Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider). For the first, there are notably the Bathers in a Pond (1908) by Erich Heckel, the Street Scene in Berlin (1914-15) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and the Landscape with Houses and Trees (1910) by Karl Schmidt- Rottluff. For the Blaue Reiter, two beautiful portraits of women are hung: Street with Women (1908) by Vassily Kandinsky and Woman in Garden (1912) by Gabriele Münter. The Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement is also present with works by Otto Dix and George Grosz, including the striking Man with the Glass Eye.

Egon Schiele “Town among greenery”

The exhibition, the launch of which coincided with the reopening of the museum after New York’s anti-Covid restrictions, is being organized on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Neue Galerie. When the visit is over, you should visit the souvenir shop, which offers beautiful art books, as well as the adjoining café: the Sabarsky. You can taste coffees, hot chocolates and Viennese cakes and you can read the Austrian press of the day.

Max Beckmann, Self portrait with Horn