Saturday, October 18, 2025

Over 100 Works of Austrian Expressionism to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

 24 works from this gift will be on view beginning November 23, 2025

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has announced a gift of more than 130 works of Austrian Expressionism from the family of Otto Kallir, including the first paintings by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Richard Gerstl to enter the collection. Transferred to LACMA over several years, the donation broadly surveys Austrian Expressionism from its roots at the turn of the 20th century to the 1920s with paintings, more than 100 drawings, prints, and posters, and a selection of works by artist-designers who were affiliated with the Wiener Werkstätte, founded in 1903. In addition to the paintings by Klimt, Schiele, and Gerstl, the donation includes works by Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Kubin, and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky and by the German artists Lovis Corinth and Käthe Kollwitz.

 A venerable art dealer active in Vienna from the early 1920s, Otto Kallir (1894-1978) emigrated in 1938 after the National Socialist annexation of Austria. Arriving in New York in 1939, he established the Galerie St. Etienne, which continued to advance the work and legacy of Austrian Expressionists for 80 years. Many of the works in the gift were brought by Kallir from Vienna when he emigrated. Following his death in 1978, the gallery was run for 40 years by his granddaughter Jane Kallir, together with his business partner Hildegard Bachert. The Galerie St. Etienne closed in 2020, and Jane Kallir, a recognized scholar of Austrian modernism, has established The Kallir Research Institute, which promotes critical research on Austrian and German Expressionism

 A selection of 24 works from this gift will be on view beginning November 23, 2025. Curated by Timothy O. Benson, Helgard Field Curator of the Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, Austrian Expressionism and Otto Kallir will be presented in the Modern Art Galleries on BCAM, Level 3, through May 31, 2026. “

Gustav Klimt (1862-1919) has long been considered a fountainhead of Austrian Expressionism by virtue of his radical approach to figuration and his lasting influence over other members of the Austrian avant-garde, among them, the younger Egon Schiele (1890-1918). The Kallir gift offers the opportunity to track Klimt’s groundbreaking engagement with the human form across the two final and defining decades of his oeuvre with eight drawings and a painting. 



 Gustav Klimt, Woman with Fur Collar, 1897, gift of Kallir Family photos courtesy Kallir Research Institute, New York 

The shimmering and intimate Woman with the Fur Collar (1897), puts the artist’s Symbolist impulse on ample display, and bears witness to the beginning of an artistic revolution in the Austro-Hungarian capital with Klimt’s co-founding of the Vienna Secession the same year. 

The core of the gift are the 27 works by Schiele, two major landscape paintings of 1913 and 19 works on paper including 14 unflinching studies of the human figure, the most celebrated aspect of his oeuvre.

 


Egon Schiele, Self-Portrait with Brown Background, 1912, gift of Kallir Family; photos courtesy Kallir Research Institute, New York 

The four Schiele self-portraits, created in a span of six years, evidence the pace of Schiele’s unprecedented stylistic development, culminating in the outstanding and deeply probing Self-Portrait with Brown Background (1912), which was executed at the height of his ill-fated romance with Wally Neuzil. 

Egon Schiele, Sawmill, 1913, Kallir Family Collection, promised gift to Los Angeles County Museum of Art;  photos courtesy Kallir Research Institute, New York 



Egon Schiele The Bridge: 1913;

The two Schiele landscape paintings are remarkable not only for their vigor, but also for marking turning points in Kallir’s life. The Bridge was shown in 1923 at the first posthumous Schiele exhibition organized by Kallir in his Neue Galerie in Vienna, and Kallir brought it and Sawmill with him when he fled Nazi-occupied Austria for New York. 

Coming of age during the tumultuous last decade of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kallir began professionally championing the legacy of Schiele and Klimt soon after their passing in 1918. In the case of the tragically short-lived Richard Gerstl (1883– 1908), Kallir’s efforts around 1931 directly led to the recuperation of the little-known artist’s estate and its introduction to the Viennese public via Gerstl’s first posthumous exhibition the same year. 

Much sought-after but extremely rare are the five works by Gerstl in the gift, including the crystalline and piercing Self-Portrait, thought to have been executed a mere five weeks before the artist ended his life at the age of 25. 

The enigmatic work of Bohemian artist Alfred Kubin (1877-1959) has recently experienced a resurgence of interest; the gift of 10 works complements the museum’s two drawings and 46 prints by him, making possible a more comprehensive presentation of his work. The first Austrian Expressionist to attain international renown, 

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) led an itinerant life on a pan-European scale. One of his earliest travels to Italy is documented in the gift by two lively, veduta-like seascapes from 1913, both formerly owned by his lover Alma MahlerWerfel, the widow of the illustrious composer and conductor Gustav Mahler and, in Page 4 the 1940s, a prominent Los Angeles émigré. Two later Kokoschka drawings of women attest to the innovative potential of drawing as a modernist medium, prefiguring the gestural and compositional vitality of Willem de Kooning. 

Similar to Kokoschka, Kallir did not limit himself to the Austrian art scene and quickly became a proponent of international, especially German, art. During his lifetime, Kallir devoted 15 solo exhibitions to Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), and the gift brings two important preparatory charcoal drawings, which provide clues about the creative process behind two corresponding, iconic prints already in the Rifkind Center’s collection. 

The gift also creates an opportunity to narrate the full extent of the prominent Berlin Secessionist Lovis Corinth’s (1858-1925) activities as a prolific draughtsman and printmaker via a landscape painting, 42 works on paper, and two sketchbooks. The depth of Austrian-German interactions in the artistic sphere is further exemplified by two early portraits by the Viennese-born Marie-Louise Motesiczky (1906-1996), who was a student of Max Beckmann in Frankfurt in the 1920s. 



Dorotheum`s Old Masters auction on 23 October 2025

 Dorotheum`s Old Masters auction on 23 October 2025 features an important selection of 17th century Spanish still life paintings, landscapes, capricci and vedute, as well as religious paintings and portraiture.


Francisco de Goya (1746–1828), Portrait of The Young Duke of Alba, oil on canvas, 52.5 x 42.7 cm, estimate €400,000 – 600,000

One of the highlights of the sale is a portrait by Francisco de Goya of The Young Duke of Alba, from one of Spain’s leading noble families, painted in c.1783. This portrait by the great Spanish master demonstrates his mastery of the genre which is evident in his naturalistic style and his nuanced observation of character. It is the portrayal of the personality and the realistic presence of the sitter displayed in this painting that marks the difference between traditional aristocratic portraiture and a new sense of psychological realism that is associated with Goya’s work. The colour of the silk coat, a mixture of brown and violet, also known as “flea colour” was fashionable at the time. Use of the colour in depictions of courtly dress signals the social prestige and sophisticated taste of the sitter. (estimate €400,000 – 600,000).


Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691–1765), An offering to Aesculapius on the Isola Tiberina, Rome, oil on canvas, 102.5 x 92.5 cm, estimate €300,000 – 400,000

Giovanni Paolo Panini was one of the most celebrated painters in 18th century Rome. His depiction of the Isola Tiberina was commissioned as a tribute to Aesculapius, the god of medicine and healing, by the British physician and art collector, Dr Richard Mead. He was a pioneer in the eradication of contagious diseases and was so renowned as a healer that he listed Queen Anne, and King George II as well as the great physicist, Sir Isaac Newton and the artist Antoine Watteau amongst his patients. It would be hard to find a more fitting patron for Panini’s tribute to the god Aesculapius. According to classical tradition, as plague gripped Rome, a sacred serpent, symbol of the healing deity, came ashore on the Isola Tiberina and ended the plague. The painting portrays the founding of the sanctuary of Aesculapius on the Isola Tiberina and depicts the statue of the god presiding over worshippers offering their devotions. It is both a visual hymn to the divine origins of medicine and a reflection of Mead’s enlightened ideals. It unites science, mythology and art in a radiant vision of ancient Rome. (est: €300,000 – 400,000).  

The significant selection of 17th century Spanish still lifes included in this sale is also worthy of mention. These Spanish works have an additional characteristic which sets them apart from their Dutch and Italian counterparts. With their muted colours, restrained composition and lighting effects, they reveal a certain austerity, the roots of which lie in the piety of the Counter-Reformation. Works of particular note include Mirabelle plums and cherries in porcelain dishes by a basket of yellow pomegranates by an as yet unidentified artist (estimate on request), and the Fruit on pewter plates on a multi-tiered sideboard by Juan de Espinosa (€80,000 – 120,000).

A work Jan Brueghel II entitled Tazza with a garland of flowers, a jewellery box, a pocket watch and flowers in a glass vase is an eloquent example of the allegorical nature of Flemish still life painting. It includes a pocket watch representing the theme of vanitas or the intransience of human existence. A wreath of flowers and a necklace of pearls are symbols of feminine virtue, and the glass vase is a reminder of the fragility of life (€120,000 – 180,000). 



Further notable works from northern Europe include an atmospheric night scene by Jan Brueghel I entitled Aeneas and Anchises fleeing the burning Troy (€120,000 – 180,000), and other paintings by Jan Steen and Jan van Goyen.



Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Hansl’s first outing (Homecoming children), 1858, oil on panel, 63 x 79 cm, estimate €400,000 – 600,000

One of the highlights of the auction of 19th Century Paintings on 22 October 2025, is a masterpiece by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller. It was owned by Jewish entrepreneur Grete Klein, who fled Austria with her family in 1938 (see press release). Having been forcibly confiscated from the Klein family by the Nazi regime, the painting was intended for the infamous but never realised ‘Führer Museum’. The work was hidden in the salt mines of Aussee before being recovered by the US army’s ‘Monuments Men’ at the end of the war. It has since been in the custodianship of the Federal Republic of Germany. The painting has recently been restituted to its owners. This action-packed, multi-figure genre scene entitled Hansl's first outing, painted by Austria's most celebrated Biedermeier artist captivates the viewer with its unique composition and bright directional lighting (€400,000 – 600,000).

Monday, October 13, 2025

Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets

 Barnes Foundation

October 19, 2025, to February 22, 2026

Musée de l’Orangerie 

March 24 to July 20, 2026

In fall 2025, the Barnes Foundation presents Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets, a landmark exhibition of paintings by the self-taught artist Henri Rousseau (1844–1910), featuring works from the Barnes collection and museums around the world.

With 18 paintings by Rousseau, the Barnes is home to the world’s largest collection of works by the artist, and the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, with 11, is home to the second largest collection. This exhibition brings together these important collections, providing an unprecedented opportunity to see works that the French art dealer Paul Guillaume either owned—now in the Orangerie’s collection—or sold to Dr. Barnes. Some of these paintings will be reunited for the first time in more than 100 years, while others have never been exhibited together.

Co-curated by Christopher Green, consulting curator, professor emeritus at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and Nancy Ireson, Deputy Director for Collections and Exhibitions & Gund Family Chief Curator at the Barnes, with the support of Juliette Degennes, curator at the Musée de l’Orangerie, Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets is on view in the Roberts Gallery from October 19, 2025, through February 22, 2026. The exhibition is sponsored by Morgan Stanley and Comcast NBCUniversal.

Exceptional loans from major museums, including The Sleeping Gypsy from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, make this exhibition the most significant presentation of Rousseau’s work in decades. With nearly 60 works on view, it will also be the largest US presentation of his art since 2006. For the first time ever, three of Rousseau’s major works will appear in the same space: The Sleeping Gypsy (1897, MoMA), Unpleasant Surprise (1899–1901, the Barnes), and The Snake Charmer (1907, Musée d’Orsay, Paris). Not even the artist himself witnessed this grouping, since by the time he made The Snake CharmerThe Sleeping Gypsy was no longer in his possession.

Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets offers a unique opportunity to learn more about one of the most popular, yet least understood, modern artists. New technical study of the Rousseau works at the Barnes has provided fresh insight into how and why the artist painted in such a distinctive way. In close collaboration with Christopher Green, the Barnes’s conservation team has transformed our understanding of Rousseau’s approach. This in-depth research—conducted between 2021 and 2024—resulted in many discoveries, including five underlying paintings, eight reworked compositions, and revised dating of five paintings. Green proposed, and exacting conservation work confirmed, that two seemingly unrelated paintings were created simultaneously by Rousseau as part of a competition to decorate a town hall in the suburbs of Paris.

The exhibition and accompanying catalogue invite visitors to look beyond the myths that surrounded Rousseau after his death—when many critics characterized the painter as naive and uneducated—to discover an artist who engaged with modern life and thought deeply about what might appeal to potential buyers. Themes of the exhibition include “Capturing Community,” which highlights Rousseau’s paintings for and of his neighbors, who held jobs as small business owners, shopkeepers, and clerks, and “Playing to the Crowd,” a spectacular selection of jungle paintings from his later years, when he was celebrated by progressive painters in Paris and beyond. These themes and more are explored in greater detail in the catalogue’s essays, by Ireson, Degennes, and Martha Lucy, deputy director for research, interpretation and education at the Barnes.

“Dr. Barnes’s lasting fascination with the work of Henri Rousseau compelled him to purchase 18 paintings by the artist between 1923 and 1929, making ours the largest collection of Rousseau paintings in the world,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President of the Barnes. “We are proud to partner with the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, on this landmark exhibition, which brings works from the two preeminent Rousseau collections together for the first time, alongside important paintings from around the world. Reflecting the expansion of the Barnes’s educational program and emphasizing the historical and cultural context of individual works of art, A Painter’s Secrets will delight amateurs and experts alike. With technical study as a cornerstone of the project, the Barnes once again demonstrates its commitment to conservation research. We are thrilled to share new discoveries about Rousseau’s work and practice with an international audience.”

Rousseau, though ridiculed by critics during his lifetime, was eventually lauded as a self-taught genius, and his work influenced many avant-garde artists. His biography reveals that he was not afraid to take risks. He held a position in the French civil service, in a role that imposed tariffs on goods entering Paris. He began making art while on the job and left his position in 1893 at age 51 to pursue a career as a professional artist. With a modest pension for income, he sought a market for his art, working in different genres and soliciting a variety of patrons in his quest to make a living. He experimented with subject matter over time: jungle scenes—which he created by studying the plants and taxidermied animals in Paris’s natural history museums—landscapes, portraits, and still lifes.

Rousseau’s life was full of contradictions: he was a firm believer in the secular French state who followed Spiritualism, and a convicted fraudster who—when it suited his purposes—was happy to play the innocent. Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets considers how the artist’s paradoxical life shaped his art and practice to reveal an artist who responded to the world around him in the hope of furthering his career. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue reveal the tensions in his life and emphasize the equally inconsistent qualities of his painting style. This project considers his novel practice and examines how he created a memorable, and often fabricated, image of himself. It also reveals how he painted with viewers in mind, changing his works and his story to suit their preferences.

“We hope that visitors will gain a rich understanding of Henri Rousseau as an artist through exploring the exhibition’s thematic sections, each of which illuminates a different facet of his complex and fascinating story,” say Green and Ireson. “We invite visitors to enjoy the artist’s enigmatic paintings, while considering their meaning in the light of his personal story. We are particularly excited to bring together three paintings for the very first time: The Sleeping Gypsy (1897), Unpleasant Surprise (1899–1901), and The Snake Charmer (1907). This grouping brings to light how successfully Rousseau and his paintings have kept their secrets and points to how the artist became a major figure in the history of modernism.”

Notably, Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets marks the first occasion works from the Barnes collection will be shown in a monographic exhibition. Creating space for new conversations between works—a critical aspect of education, research, and public access—the exhibition will provide visitors a rare opportunity to temporarily experience Rousseau paintings from the Barnes alongside works from esteemed institutional and private collections around the world. Following its opening at the Barnes, the exhibition will travel to the Musée de l’Orangerie in 2026, marking the first time paintings from the Barnes collection will be presented at another institution in almost 40 years.

The exhibition features 55 paintings and one lithograph, from the Barnes, the Musée de l’Orangerie, and more than 20 collections from cities around the world, including Chicago, London, New York, Switzerland, and Tokyo. Exhibition highlights include:

  • The Sleeping Gypsy (La bohémienne endormie(1897), on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, New York. This major canvas of a sleeping woman, a lion, and a mandolin in a moonlit desert landscape has not been exhibited outside MoMA for decades.
  • The Past and the Present, or Philosophical Thought (Le passé et le présent, ou Pensée philosophique) (1899), from the Barnes collection, depicts the artist and his second wife on their wedding day. Images of the couple’s deceased spouses float above their heads, as if to bless the union. Rousseau often posed his subjects outdoors, surrounded by plants—both real and imagined. The term he coined for this genre was “portrait-landscapes.”
  • The Snake Charmer (La charmeuse de serpents) (1907), from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, was Rousseau’s first large commission and was exhibited at the 1907 Salon d'Automne.
  • Scouts Attacked by a Tiger (Éclaireurs attaqués par un tigre) (1904), from the Barnes collection, was painted during the French colonial period, when such works were popular with Parisian audiences for their theatrical presentation of faraway territories.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Henri Rousseau 
(French, 1844–1910) produced some of the most original and recognizable artworks of the modern era. A self-taught artist who began painting later in life, Rousseau had a unique vision that is perhaps best exemplified in his jungle scenes. These captivating tableaux, based largely on visits to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, are vivid, lush, and often unsettling in the exoticism of the imaginary worlds they portray. Rousseau’s visual world was influenced by everything he encountered, from postcards and early cinema to everyday scenes in the streets and parks of Paris. He was celebrated during his lifetime by Pablo Picasso and other modernist contemporaries who recognized his contribution in opening up new realms of artistic possibility. Adapted from Henri Rousseau: Jungles in Paris (New York: Abrams, 2006)

ABOUT THE CO-CURATORS
Christopher Green, FBA, is professor emeritus at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. He is the author and editor of numerous volumes, including Cubism and Its Enemies (1987), which was the recipient of the Mitchell Prize for 20th-century art; Juan Gris (1993); Art in France, 1900–1940 (2000); Picasso’s ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ (2001);Picasso: Architecture and Vertigo (2005); and Cubism and War: The Crystal in the Flame (2016). His newest book, Cubism and Reality: Braque, Picasso, Gris, will be published in September 2025. He has also curated and co-curated many notable exhibitions, including Henri Rousseau: Jungles in Paris (Tate Modern, 2005).

Nancy Ireson, PhD, is Deputy Director for Collections and Exhibitions & Gund Family Chief Curator at the Barnes. Exhibitions she has curated or co-curated include Modigliani Up Close (Barnes, 2022), Suzanne Valadon: Model, Painter, Rebel (Barnes, 2021), Elijah Pierce’s America(Barnes, 2020), Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy (Tate Modern, 2018), Modigliani (Tate Modern, 2017), Temptation! The Demons of James Ensor (Art Institute of Chicago, 2014), and Cézanne’s Card Players (Courtauld Gallery, 2010). At the Barnes, she manages the teams responsible for collections and exhibitions, including curatorial, conservation, registration, and publications. Prior to joining the Barnes, she held curatorial positions at Tate Modern, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery, London.

CATALOGUE
Distributed for the Barnes Foundation by Yale University Press, the publication Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets offers a comprehensive study of the 18 works at the Barnes and places them in dialogue with works from around the globe, including those from art dealer Paul Guillaume’s collection, now housed at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. Edited by Christopher Green and Nancy Ireson with contributions by Barbara Buckley, Juliette Degennes, Martha Lucy, Mina Porell, and Anya Shutova, the catalogue is an unprecedented overview of the artist’s work that considers paintings that have been apart for more than 100 years.

Green, Ireson, and Barnes conservation staff consider Rousseau’s novel artistic practice and explore his process of adapting works to new purposes. They also examine how Rousseau navigated the art world, driven by the need to market his works in the hope of furthering his career. Richly illustrated with Rousseau’s idiosyncratic jungle scenes, landscapes, portraits, and still lifes, this volume presents new findings and includes novel essays that discuss the market for the artist in the 1920s and the veiled eroticism of the painter’s jungle scenes. The Musée de l’Orangerie will publish a French version of the catalogue.

EXHIBITION ORGANIZATION
Developed in partnership with the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, Henri Rousseau: A Painter's Secrets is curated by Christopher Green, consulting curator, Professor Emeritus at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and Nancy Ireson, Deputy Director for Collections and Exhibitions & Gund Family Chief Curator at the Barnes, with the support of Juliette Degennes, curator at the Musée de l’Orangerie.

Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets is on view at the Barnes from October 19, 2025, to February 22, 2026, and at the Musée de l’Orangerie from March 24 to July 20, 2026.

IMAGES



Henri Rousseau. The Snake Charmer, 1907. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris© Musée d’Orsay, dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Patrice Schmidt



Henri Rousseau. The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897. Oil on canvas. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mrs. Simon Guggenheim, 1939. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY


Henri Rousseau. The Past and the Present, or Philosophical Thought, 1899. Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Image © Barnes Foundation


Henri Rousseau. Père Junier’s Cart, 1908. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris By courtesy of the Musée de l'Orangerie. Photo: © GrandPalaisRmn (Orangerie museum) / Franck Raux



Henri Rousseau. Fight between a Tiger and a Buffalo, 1908. Oil on canvas. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Gift of the Hanna Fund


Henri Rousseau. Child with a Doll, c. 1892. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris By courtesy of the Musée de l'Orangerie. Photo: © GrandPalaisRmn (Orangerie museum) / Franck Raux



Henri Rousseau. Carnival Evening, 1886. Oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Louis E. Stern Collection, 1963



Henri Rousseau. The Football Players, 1908. Oil on canvas. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York


Henri Rousseau. Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest, c. 1910. Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Image © Barnes Foundation



Henri Rousseau. Portrait of a Woman in a Landscape, 1899. Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Image © Barnes Foundation



Henri Rousseau. View of the Quai d’Asnières, April 1900–1902. Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphi Image © Barnes Foundation


Henri Rousseau. The Rabbit's Meal, 1908. Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia. Image © Barnes Foundation


Henri Rousseau. Unpleasant Surprise, 1899–1901. Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Image © Barnes Foundation