Press kit: 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
20.3. – 8.9.2024

During World War II, the Salzkammergut was unrivalled among Austria’s regions as a transshipment point and a safe haven for outstanding works of art of European art history. For the “Führermuseum” Hitler was planning for Linz, he used the Aussee salt mines as holding areas for works of art. Nor was he alone. Leading Austrian museums were also availing themselves provisionally of mines, churches, and even pubs in St. Agatha, Bad Aussee, Altaussee, and in Bad Ischl/Lauffen as temporary places of storage and safekeeping.

The exhibition sets off in an exemplary manner in search of works of art, which were hoarded, stored, looted, aryanized, forcibly sold, shifted to the black market, auctioned off or salvaged in the Salzkammergut in World War II. The paths these works of art struck out into the wide world were the consequence of their “uprooting”. The exhibition features masterpieces by such artists as Arnold Böcklin, Lovis Corinth, Francisco José de Goya, Francesco Guardi, Oskar Kokoschka, Franz von Lenbach, Hans Makart, Edvard Munch, Moritz von Schwind, Max Pechstein, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Tiziano and Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller.
The contemporary installation Ruinenwert [The Value of Ruins] (2019) by German artist Henrike Naumann expands the exhibition architecture designed by the artist-and-architect duo Nicole Six and Paul Petritsch. The exhibition Reise der Bilder functions as an important cross-border project focusing on Austria (Linz / Salzkammergut) – Italy – Germany – Netherlands – France.

Location: Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz

Curators: Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller (Projectlead, Vize-Director Lentos), Birgit Schwarz (expert in the Nazis’ art policies, guest curator)

Lentos and the European Capital of Culture 2024 – Linz, Lauffen, Bad Aussee

Within the overall framework of the programme line “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. 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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