Donation of Art-Historical Significance for the Leopold Museum: Arthur Schnitzler Portrait by Max Oppenheimer Enriches the Collection

18.01.2024

The painting will be shown as of now in the current Oppenheimer exhibition.

At the end of 2023, the Leopold Museum received a very special Christmas present. A Viennese patroness made it possible for the museum to acquire the 1911 painting Portrait of Arthur Schnitzler by Max Oppenheimer (Vienna 1885–1954 New York). The painting, which was bought at auction by the Director of the Leopold Museum Hans-Peter Wipplinger with Ketterer auctioneers in Munich, is shown as of 17th January as part of the exhibition Max Oppenheimer. Expressionist Pioneer. The successful show has been enthusiastically received by some 125,000 visitors so far and is still on display until 25th February at the Leopold Museum. The work is now the third important Oppenheimer painting in the collection of the Leopold Museum, together with the Portrait of Tilla Durieux (1912), bought by Rudolf Leopold, and a 1911 Self-Portrait, which was also acquired in 2023.

Along with Richard Gerstl, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele, Max Oppenheimer is among the most eminent Austrian Expressionists, who in the first quarter of the 20th century was one of the most sought-after portraitists. He created portraits of personalities including the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, the architect Adolf Loos, the writers and brothers Heinrich and Thomas Mann, the collector Oskar Reichel, his artist friend Egon Schiele, the gallery owner Heinrich Thannhauser, the composers Ferruccio Busoni, Arnold Schönberg, Anton Webern, and many others. His portraits are kept today at eminent museums and institutions, such as the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, at the Von der Heydt-Museum in Wuppertal, The Jewish Museum in Berlin, the National Gallery in Prague, at the Belvedere and Wien Museum in Vienna, and at the Neue Galerie in New York.

Oppenheimer’s portrait of Arthur Schnitzler (Vienna 1862–1931 ibid.) was created shortly before the famous writer’s 50th birthday. In 1910, the dramatist had just published one of his best-known works today, the play The Wide Country. The painting – like the 1911 Self-Portrait – featured in the comprehensive solo exhibition of Oppenheimer’s works at Heinrich Thannhauser’s Moderne Galerie in Munich, which won the artist his breakthrough. The portrait was subsequently shown at Kunsthaus Zürich and at Paul Cassirer’s art salon in Berlin in 1911/12. In 1913, it was on display at the Kunstverein Mannheim and at Emil Richter’s art salon in Dresden. The work was later part of several private collections, and is now accessible to the public once more for the first time in 110 years.

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