Neue Gallery Opens Messerschmidt and Lauder Collections, 9/16 and 10/7

From September 16, 2010 to January 10, 2011, the Neue Galerie will present exhibition of work by the eighteenth-century artist Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. Organized by Guilhem Scherf, chief curator of sculpture at the Musée du Louvre, the exhibition will be on view ?rst at the Neue Galerie, then travel to the Louvre, where it will be on view beginning in late January 2011. This will be the ?rst major museum Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, The Yawner, 1771-81, pewter exhibition in the United States devoted exclusively to this artist, and it will be the ?rst collaboration between the Neue Galerie and the Louvre. The show will extend the mission of the Neue Galerie, showing the roots of Expressionism and providing for a more complete understanding of the works in the museum collection. It will be accompanied by a full-scale catalogue, to be published by Of?cina Libraria. Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736-1783) ?rst made his mark in Vienna, where he enjoyed a successful career, including several royal commissions. Working in a neoclassical vein, Messerschmidt produced some of the most important sculptures of the eighteenth century. He presented the individual features of his subjects in a way that did not idealize them. No other sculptor in Vienna at the time was similarly uncompromising when Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, Afflicted with Constipation, 1771-83, lead-tin alloy producing portraits.

Around 1770, there was a rupture in Messerschmidt's life. The artist was thought to have psychological problems, lost his position at the university, and decided to return to Wiesensteig, his native Bavarian town. Messerschmidt devoted himself to the creation of his "character heads," the body of work for which he would become best known. To produce these works, the artist would look into the mirror, pinching his body and making faces. He then rendered, with great precision, his distorted face. Messerschmidt is known to have produced 49 of these astonishing works before he died in 1783. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

From October 7, 2010, to January 17, 2011, the Neue Galerie will present "Postcards of the Wiener Werkstätte: Selections from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection." This will be the ?rst major museum show ever held in the United States devoted exclusively to the postcards produced by the Wiener Werkstätte. Exhibition material is drawn exclusively from The Leonard A. Lauder Collection and celebrates the promised gift of a near-complete set of the Maria Likarz-Strauss (1893-1971), Fashion, Wiener Werkstätte Postcard 557, Chromolithograph, 1911 postcards to the Neue Galerie. A fully illustrated catalogue raisonée, published by Hatje Cantz, will accompany the exhibition. It will be the ?rst catalogue raisonné on Wiener Werkstätte postcards to appear in English. The exhibition is organized by distinguished decorative arts curator Christian Witt-Dörring. The Wiener Werkstätte or Vienna Workshops were founded in 1903 by architect Josef Hoffmann and artist Koloman Moser. Beginning in 1907, the Wiener Werkstätte began publishing a numbered series of postcards, which would ultimately exceed 1,000. There were numerous cards designed to celebrate holidays, such as Easter, Christmas, New Year's, and others. When the fashion department was founded in 1910, costume and accessories became another popular Moriz Jung (1885-1915), Viennese Café: The Man of Letters, Wiener Werkstätte Postcard 532, Chromolithograph, 1911 subject depicted in the postcards, along with illustrations of places in Vienna and elsewhere in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Europe. All of the major designers who worked for the ?rm were contributors in this medium including Josef Hoffmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, and Dagobert Peche. Other noteworthy artists who were active in this area include Moriz Jung, Rudolf Kalvach, Mela Koehler, and Maria Likarz, among others.

For further information, please contact Neue Galerie New York, 1048 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028, by phone at (212) 628-6200, e-mail at press@neuegalerie.org, or online at www.neuegalerie.org.

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