Vienna Museum

“Secessions: What united the renegades

Poster for the 3rd exhibition of the Berlin Secession, 1901

(Bild: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Foto: Dietmar Katz)

Vienna, Munich and Berlin come together in the new exhibition "Secessions: Klimt, Stuck, Liebermann" with many an aha effect.

In Vienna, the Secession, with illustrious names such as Klimt, Hofmann, Moser and Moll, likes to lay claim to itself. "Even as a patriotic Klimt fan, I have to admit - Munich was way ahead of Vienna," admits curator Ursula Storch. "Without the pioneering role of their Munich colleagues, the Viennese would probably never have considered leaving the artists' cooperative." And Berlin also followed suit with its own Secession - with Max Liebermann as one of its best-known figureheads.

The exhibition at the Wien Museum is therefore also called "Secessions" in the unusual plural. It invites visitors to compare these three movements, which freed themselves from the academic art world on their way to modernism. Here you can find the unifying features of the Secessions as well as their unique selling points.

Franz von Stuck (here: "Sin") was a figurehead of the Munich Secession.

(Bild: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Andres Kilger)

Max Liebermann's works represent the Berlin Secession (here his "Portrait of Dr. Wilhelm Bode").

(Bild: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Foto: Jörg P. Anders)

It was not a question of "playing one Secession off against the other. When you look at the three Secessions together, you realize that it really was a joint movement," emphasizes Ralph Gleis, the designated General Director of the Albertina in Vienna and current head of the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, who designed the exhibition together with Ursula Storch.

In Berlin, they have already celebrated a huge success with the public - 230,000 people saw the encounter between Gustav Klimt, Max Liebermann, Franz von Stuck and their fellow artists.

(Bild: Birgit und Peter Kainz, Wien Museum)

Klimt's "Judith", which was in the spotlight in Berlin, has returned to the Belvedere. Instead, the two "Pallas Athene" paintings by Klimt and Stuck are now prominently featured in the Wien Museum right at the beginning. "While Stuck, who was the first to choose her as the patron goddess of movement, is still rather conventional in his depiction, Klimt's criticism of the artists' cooperative can be seen," says Storch. "The outstretched tongue on the breastplate - or the 'Nuda Veritas' in the right hand, the naked truth holding up a mirror." It is precisely these comparisons that should provide many an aha effect.

The exhibition "Secessions. Klimt, Stuck, Liebermann" can be seen at the Wien Museum until October 13.