The Journey of the Paintings
Hitler’s cultural policies and the art trade; the storage and safekeeping of art works in the Salzkammergut during the Nazi era
Art transports from the Altaussee salt mine, 1943/44 
Anthonis van Dyck, Jupiter as Satyr at Antiope, about 1620 
Arnold Böcklin, Castle by the Sea (Murder in the Castle), 1859 
Tiziano Vecellio, Amor, 1530 
Henrike Naumann, Ruin Value, Exhibition view from "Illiberal Lives" at the Ludwig Forum Aachen, 2023
During the Second World War, the Salzkammergut served as a point of transit and refuge for important works of European art history like no other region in Austria. Adolf Hitler had thousands of works of art stored for safekeeping in the Altaussee salt mine for his planned “Führermuseum” in Linz. Following the vilification of modernism as “degenerate”, art was looted and confiscated as booty and instrumentalised for the aims of National Socialism. Austrian museums also used the Franz-Josef-Erbstollen [Franz Josef adit] in Bad Ischl/Lauffen in the Salzkammergut as a temporary storage facility in 1944/45.
The exhibition presents more than 70 works of art that were collected, stored, looted, forcibly sold, moved, recovered and salvaged in the Salzkammergut during the Second World War. Masterpieces by Goya, Edvard Munch, Lovis Corinth, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Titian, Anthonis van Dyck, Moritz von Schwind, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller and many others tell their story of journeys and odysseys with many stops and storage locations.
Lentos & European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024 – Linz, Lauffen, Bad Aussee
Within the overall framework of the programme line “Macht und Tradition“ [Power and Tradition], the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz contributes three exhibitions in a project entitled “Uprooted Pictures” to the European Capital of Culture 2024. Of these, Uprooted Pictures. Hitler’s Cultural Policies, the Art Trade, Storages and Retrievals in the Nazi Era at Linz’s Lentos is the Capital of Culture’s flagship event in the capital of Upper Austria and invites visitors to stop over on their way to or from the Capital of Culture.
Furthermore, the Lentos will be present in the Salzkammergut in a collaborative venture with the Kammerhofmuseum in Bad Aussee, the exhibition Wolfgang Gurlitt. Kunsthändler und Profiteur in Bad Aussee Wolfgang Gurlitt. Art dealer and profiteer in Bad Aussee, and in an exhibition at the revitalised former Marktrichterhaus [Market Reeve’s House] in Lauffen, entitled The Life of Things. looted – displaced – salvaged.
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