Secessions: Klimt, Stuck, Liebermann at the Wien Museum

Following its appearance at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin in 2023, the exhibition “Secessions: Klimt, Stuck, Liebermann” will be shown at the newly reopened Wien Museum from May 23 until October 13, 2024

Source: Wien Museum · Image: Gustav Klimt, “Palas Atenea” (detail), 1898

The term Secession relates to an important chapter in art history at the dawn of modernism, and is directly associated with Gustav Klimt in Vienna, Franz von Stuck in Munich, and Max Liebermann in Berlin.

The establishment of Secessions in many European countries in the late 19th century symbolized a break with the prevailing artistic institutions. Rejecting the traditional structures of public subsidies and systems of exhibitions whose juries imposed the criteria of traditional art academies, secessionist artists aspired to freedom. Their objective was vibrancy, and a diversity of forms of artistic expression with an international orientation – a precondition for the emergence of artistic modernism.

The exhibition focuses on the overarching nature of these new ideas in Munich, Vienna, and Berlin. They transformed a formerly academic system into an artist-driven scene characterized by new exhibition formats and novel locations. The changes also resulted in a new relationship between artists, collectors, dealers, and critics.

The exhibition combines modern masterpieces with a new account of Central European modernism at the intersection of local specificity and international significance.