Schloss Bruck
Lienz Town Museum



Exhibition May 16th – October 26th 2009
FOREBODING and IDYLL
The Image of Man in Austria 1918 – 1938

Man in the period between 1918 and the end of WW2 is the theme of this year’s special exhibition in Bruck Castle. These almost three decades are a time of great upheavals and disruptions. Many of the artists exhibited were born and grew up in the vast Austro-Hungarian Empire; some of them had first-hand experience of WWI; then came the breakup of the multiethnic state and the foundation of the First Republic with the final Anschluss into the Third Reich.

100 masterpieces of Austrian interwar painting including works by Albin Egger-Lienz, Oskar Kokoschka, Herbert Boeckl, Anton Kolig, Erika Giovanna Klien and Max Oppenheimer, depict the extremely heterogeneous image of man in that epoch – in between insecurity, the fear for one’s existence, the escape from reality and the spirit of hope and optimism going into the modern age.

Threatened Existence I deals with the post-war years with their persecution, derision and human isolation. Parallel to that the Modern Times theme shows new, positive signals from technology and the era. Experiencing the Sensuous and Yearning for the Idyll combine figurative still life and nudes indoors and in natural settings. The two sections Disconnected from Reality and Dreamy Surreal World incorporate motifs of the New Objectivity and the inner view of dreams and constraints. Threatened Existence II signals the resistance against the norms of the Third Reich. The presentation is supplemented by Self-portraits of the artists as an authentic portrayal of the human position.

Items on loan are from inter alia the Leopold Museum in Vienna, the Vienna Museum, the Art Collection of the Austrian National Bank, the provincial museums of Vorarlberg, Tyrol, Salzburg and Lower Austria and particularly from private collections at home and abroad.

http://www.stadt-lienz.at