Great Paintings

Summer Exhibitions under the Banner of the Lentos Collection.

Great, greater, greatest, …
Center stage for masterpieces of painting and graphic arts from the museum collection – naturally in the large exhibition hall.
Large format and top quality works, paintings and drawings from the museum holdings are the focal point of this show that offers a new perspective of different style directions in recent art since 1945 up to the present.

Meditative, abstract expressions from the 1980s and 1990s by Herbert Brandl, Hubert Scheibl, Kurt Kocherscheidt, Gunter Damisch and Otto Zitko, for instance, represent an important focal point of the collection. Brandl´s nomination as Austrian representative at the Biennale di Venezia and the presence of these artists in the most diverse exhibitions bear witness to contemporary interest in the former ​“young wild ones”.

The strong trend of figurative painting is represented by the Swiss hyperrealist Franz Gertsch, whose girls on the beach are still enchanting and surprising, as well as current acquisitions of work by the Dutch artist Vanessa Jane Phaff or the young Austrian Bruno Hoffmann. Johanna Kandl´s politically incisive paintings, like the paintings of the Vienna based Martin Schnur, are based on photos. The German ​“prince of painters” Markus Lüpertz whisks us away into a dubious ​“paradise”.

The pluralism of painting since 1945 is expanded with provocative pictures by the Viennese Actionists Hermann Nitsch and Otto Mühl, and with a monumental ​“pour painting” by Markus Prachensky.

In addition to canvases, many of them presented for the first time in the ​“best light”, the informative series of this major collection presentation is rounded out by a selection of subtle drawings by Peter Hauenschild/​Georg Ritter, Uli Aigner, Tobias Pils and others.