The Leopold Museum presents the first comprehensive exhibition in Austria of highlights from the Würth Collection. The Würth Collection is among the largest private collections in Europe and one of the most eminent compilations of artworks worldwide. For the conception of the exhibition, which unites works from Classical Modernism to contemporary art and thus allows for a unique journey through 100 years of art history, the Leopold Museum’s Director Hans-Peter Wipplinger was given carte blanche to select 200 masterpieces from the approximately 20,000 works comprised in the collection and to show these highlights from the Würth Collection on two exhibition levels at the Leopold Museum.

On one floor of the presentation, the emphasis is on Classical Modernism with museum works by Max Liebermann, Max Pechstein, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Edvard Munch, Gabriele Münter, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Ferdinand Hodler, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, René Magritte and Oskar Schlemmer, among others. Entire rooms are dedicated to the likes of Max Beckmann and Pablo Picasso with around ten paintings each. The second exhibition level focuses on contemporary art, featuring works by Fernando Botero, Gerhard Richter and Per Kirkeby. The artist couple Christo and Jeanne Claude, as well as Georg Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer, are accorded their own exhibition rooms. The strong presence of Austrian artists in Reinhold Würth’s collection (the largest outside of Austria) is another striking feature. Two rooms are dedicated to works by Fritz Wotruba, Maria Lassnig, Arnulf Rainer and Erwin Wurm.