Galerie St. Etienne is a New York art gallery specializing in Austrian and German Expressionism, established in Vienna in 1939 by Otto Kallir (originally Otto Nirenstein). In 1923, Kallir founded the Neue Galerie in Vienna.[1] Forced to leave Austria after the 1938 Nazi invasion, Kallir established his gallery in Paris as the Galerie St. Etienne, named after the Neue Galerie's location near Vienna's Cathedral of St. Stephen. In 1939, Kallir and his family left France for the United States, moving the Galerie St. Etienne to New York City.[2] The gallery still exists,[3] run by Otto Kallir's granddaughter Jane at 24 West 57th Street.
After antisemitism at Vienna’s Technische Hochschule forced Kallir to abandon his dream of becoming an aeronautical engineer, he decided instead to pursue a longstanding interest in art.[4] In 1919, he established a publishing concern, the Verlag Neur Graphik, on the premises of the Galerie Würthle, a leading art gallery in Vienna.[5] In 1923, Kallir opened his own gallery, the Neue Galerie, for which the New York museum of Austrian and German art and design was later named. The Vienna gallery opened with the first major posthumous exhibition of Egon Schiele's work, and continued to represent artists such as Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Richard Gerstl and Alfred Kubin. In addition to the work of Austrian artists, Kallir brought international figures like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Signac, Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne to the gallery. Kallir also published limited edition prints by artists like Max Beckmann, Johannes Itten, Oskar Kokoschka and Alfred Kubin, and most notably a portfolio of Egon Schiele's etchings and lithographs, Das Graphische Werk von Egon Schiele, continuing to utilize the publishing skills he developed early in his career.[6]
The Anschluss and its aftermath
After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, Kallir faced persecution not only for being Jewish, but for supporting the Schuschnigg government. He sold the Neue Galerie to his secretary, Vita Kūnstler, who preserved the gallery as best she could and voluntarily returned it to Kallir after World War II. Because work by the modern artists the gallery represented was not subject to Austria's export laws and was in most cases, considered by the Nazis to be "degenerate", Kallir was able to bring a significant portion of the gallery's inventory with him into exile. Kallir and his family initially emigrated to Lucerne, Switzerland, but, because he was not granted a Swiss work permit, Kallir traveled to Paris, where he founded the Galerie St. Etienne. Since the French would not admit his wife and two children, the Kallir family emigrated to the United States in 1939.
America
After establishing New York's Galerie St. Etienne in 1939, Kallir helped introduce Expressionism to the United States. The gallery hosted the first American exhibitions of numerous important Austrian and German modernists in the 1940s and 1950s, including Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Kubin, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Käthe Kollwitz and Egon Schiele. Through shows, sales, scholarship, and gifts to museums such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Kallir and the Galerie St. Etienne established a place in the American eye for Austrian and German expressionism.[7]
The Galerie St. Etienne began representing the work of American folk artists as Kallir attempted to capture the identity of his newfound homeland. In 1940, the Galerie St. Etienne hosted the first one-woman exhibition of the work of Anna Mary Robertson ("Grandma") Moses.[8]
The Galerie St. Etienne gained the exclusive representation of Grandma Moses, who became one of the most renowned American artists of the immediate postwar era, in large part thanks to a relationship cultivated by Hildegard Bachert, who joined the gallery’s staff in 1940 and later became its codirector.[9]
In 1941, the gallery exhibited Navajo and Hopi weavings, as Kallir aimed to exhibit art reflective of American identity.[10]
The Galerie St. Etienne maintained a long tradition of outstanding scholarship, beginning with the first catalogue raisonné of Egon Schiele's paintings, Egon Schiele: Persönlichkeit und Werke, published by Otto Kallir in 1930.[11] Kallir published an update to this book in 1966,[12] and a catalogue raisonné of the artist's prints, Egon Schiele: The Graphic Work, in 1970.[13] In addition, he authored catalogue raisonnés documenting the work of Grandma Moses (1973)[14] and Richard Gerstl (1974).[15]
Postwar Restitution
Given his connections in the exile community and his knowledge of prewar art collections, Otto Kallir made a special effort to assist collectors in recovering art that had been stolen during the Hitler years. At the time, his efforts often met with fierce resistance. However, in 1998, Kallir's records facilitated the seizure of a stolen Schiele painting, Portrait of Wally, on loan from Austria to the Museum of Modern Art. The case caused Austria to revamp its restitution laws, permitting the return of many looted artworks.
The increased attention paid to Holocaust-era looting since 1998 has caused some of Kallir’s early transactions to be questioned. However, no evidence of wrongdoing on his part has ever been found. In a case concerning Oscar Kokoschka's Two Nudes, owned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the judge ruled against the claimant, Claudia Seger-Thomschitz.[2] Similarly, in a case involving a Schiele, Seated Woman with Bent Left Leg (1917), alleged to have been stolen from Fritz Grünbaum (a Holocaust victim), the judge ruled in favor of the owner, David Bakalar.[3] The judge stated, “After more than two years of discovery in connection with this litigation…, Defendants have not produced any concrete evidence that the Nazis looted the Drawing or that it was otherwise taken from Grünbaum.”[4]
1978-2020
Upon Kallir's death in 1978, the Galerie St. Etienne was taken over by long-time associate, Hildegard Bachert, and Kallir's granddaughter, Jane Kallir.
Jane Kallir continued the gallery’s scholarly tradition, publishing over 20 books on such subjects as Grandma Moses, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, the Wiener Werkstätte and Austrian Expressionism (see Publications for further information). Her catalogue raisonné Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, was released in 1990 and expanded in 1998. A digital update is available at egonschieleonline.org[5].
In addition to writing short texts to accompany each of the Galerie St. Etienne’s exhibitions, Jane Kallir became known for her annual “Art Market Reports”[17]
While continuing to represent Grandma Moses, starting in the 1980s, the Galerie St. Etienne expanded its roster of self-taught artists to include Henry Darger, John Kane, Ilija Bosilj, Michel Nedjar and the Artists of the Gugging.
The gallery also expanded its representation of Expressionists, with Germans such as Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner regularly appearing alongside Austrians such as Klimt, Kokoschka, Kubin and Schiele.
A major exception to the gallery’s historical orientation was its representation of contemporary British-born artist Sue Coe, whose oeuvre shares close formal and thematic connections with the work of Käthe Kollwitz. From 2007-2020, the gallery also represented the estate of the American artist Leonard Baskin.[18]
Both Kallir and Bachert received various awards for their contributions to Austrian and German cultural preservation, and the gallery has been honored for its contributions to the Bennington Museum, which is known for its Grandma Moses collection.[23]
Hildegard Bachert died in 2019 at the age of 98.[24]
In 2020, the Galerie St. Etienne ceased commercial operations and became an art advisory. Its archives and library were transferred to the Kallir Research Institute, a foundation established in 2017. The KRI continues to provide authentications for works attributed to Egon Schiele and Grandma Moses, and cooperates with internationally recognized scholars on pertinent research projects.[25]
Publications
The following publications are associated with the gallery:[26]
Egon Schiele: Oeuvre Catalogue of the Paintings (Crown Publishers, New York: 1966)
Egon Schiele; The Graphic Work (Crown, New York: 1970)
Grandma Moses (Abrams: New York: 1973)
Richard Gerstl (1883-1908): Beitrāge zur Dokumentation seines Lebens und Werkes (Counsel Press: New York, 1974)
Gustav Klimt/Egon Schiele (New York: Crown Publishers, 1980)
Austria's Expressionism (New York: Rizzoli International, 1981)
The Folk Art Tradition: Naive Painting in Europe and the United States (New York: The Viking Press, 1981)
Grandma Moses: The Artist Behind the Myth (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1982)
Arnold Schoenberg's Vienna (New York: Rizzoli International, 1984)
Viennese Design and the Wiener Werkstätte (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1986)
Gustav Klimt: 25 Masterworks (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989)
Egon Schiele: The Complete Works – Including a Biography and a Catalogue Raisonné (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990; expanded edition 1998)
Egon Schiele (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1994)
Egon Schiele: 27 Masterworks (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1996)
Grandma Moses: 25 Masterworks (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997)
Grandma Moses in the 21st Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001
The Essential Grandma Moses (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001)
Egon Schiele: Life and Work (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003)
Egon Schiele: Drawings and Watercolors (London: Thames & Hudson, 2003)
Egon Schiele: Love and Death (Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum & Hatje Cantz: 2005)
Egon Schiele: Erotica (Paris: Éditions Anthèse: 2007)
Gustav Klimt: In Search of the Total Artwork (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2009)
Egon Schiele: Self-Portraits and Portraits (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2011)
Egon Schiele's Women (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2012)
The Women of Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2015)
Related Research Articles
Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism. Gustav Klimt, a figurative painter of the early 20th century, was a mentor to Schiele.
The Neue Galerie New York is a museum of early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design located in the William Starr Miller House at 86th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City. Established in 2001, it is one of the most recent additions to New York City's famed Museum Mile, which runs from 83rd to 105th streets on Fifth Avenue in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Richard Gerstl was an Austrian painter and draughtsman known for his expressive psychologically insightful portraits, his lack of critical acclaim during his lifetime, and his affair with the wife of Arnold Schoenberg, which led to his suicide.
The Österreichische Galerie Belvedere is a museum housed in the Belvedere palace, in Vienna, Austria.
The Leopold Museum, housed in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria, is home to one of the largest collections of modern Austrian art, featuring artists such as Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Richard Gerstl.
The Lentos Art Museum is a museum of modern art in Linz, Austria, which opened in May 2003 as the successor to the Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz.
Tobias G. Natter is an Austrian art historian and internationally renowned art expert with a particular expertise in "Vienna 1900".
Nan Phelps, was an American folk artist from London, Kentucky. Phelps’ work has often been compared to that of the more famous Grandma Moses in both style and subject matter.
Neue Galerie may refer to:
Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900 was an exhibition at the National Gallery, London, running from 9 October 2013 through to 12 January 2014.
Galerie nächst St. Stephan is an art gallery in Vienna, Austria that was founded by Monseigneur Otto Mauer in 1954 on Grünangergasse next to the Stephansdom, where it is still located today. Rosemarie Schwarzwälder has owned the gallery since 1987. Before that, she was the gallery's director from 1978. Schwarzwälder has made the gallery the international renowned institution that it is today.
Jill Lloyd is a writer and curator specializing in twentieth-century art, with particular expertise for German and Austrian art. She has organised many critically acclaimed exhibitions for leading museums and has published widely, including her book German Expressionism, Primitivism and Modernity, which was awarded the first National Art Book Prize.
Jane Kallir is an American art dealer, curator and author. She is co-director of the Galerie St. Etienne in New York, which specializes in Austrian and German Expressionism as well as self-taught and “outsider” art. In 2020, the gallery ceased commercial operations and became an art advisory. Its archives and library were transferred to the Kallir Research Institute, a foundation established in 2017. Kallir serves as President of the KRI. She has curated exhibitions for many American and international museums and is the author of the catalogue raisonné of Egon Schiele’s work in all mediums.
Otto Kallir was an Austrian-American art historian, author, publisher, and gallerist. He was awarded the Silbernes Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um das Land Wien in 1968.
Hildegard Bachert was a German-born American art dealer and gallery director. Born in Mannheim, Germany in 1921, Bachert moved to America in 1936 to seek refuge from the Nazi regime. In 1940, she began working at the Galerie St. Etienne, a Manhattan gallery specializing in Austrian and German expressionist art, where she worked until her death.
Dead City III is an oil on wood expressionist painting by Egon Schiele from 1911. It was owned by the Viennese cabaret artist Fritz Grünbaum before he was murdered by Nazis and has been the object of high-profile disputes and court battles. Suspected by New York's District Attorney of having been looted by the Nazis, Dead City III was temporarily confiscated from the Austrian art collector Rudolf Leopold after he loaned it to a New York museum in 1998. The ownership history of the painting has been the object of high-profile court cases in which two very different versions of the painting's journey from the Jewish Holocaust victim to the Austrian art collector collide.
Serge Sabarsky was an art collector and art dealer of the 20th century.
Lea Bondi, later Lea Jaray or Lea Bondi-Jaray was an Austrian art dealer and art collector who was forced to emigrate to Great Britain due to Nazi persecution after the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich. The Würthle Gallery, which she ran, was "Aryanized" by Nazis and her art collection, including the Portrait of Wally by Egon Schiele, extorted.
Friedrich Maximilian Welz was an Austrian art dealer and Nazi Party member investigated for art looting.
References
↑ Bisanz and Kallir, Otto Kallir-Nirenstein: Ein Wegbereiter österreichischer Kunst (Wien: Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, 1986)
1 2 Kallir, Saved from Europe (New York: Galerie St. Etienne, 1999)
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