The exhibition The Purloined Masterpiece. Images as Time Machines contrasts the common practice of the show collection with a model that allows the Academy’s historical art collections – Ge-mäldegalerie, Kupferstichkabinett and Glyptothek – to enter into conversation with contemporary works. The exhibition draws on the richness of the three collections, picking out only a selection of the many possible pictorial programs, typologies, and allegorical formulas to loosely interweave with other works from other periods.

In doing so, the exhibition opens a parcours through the history of art from the 15th century to the present day, as reflected in the richness of the three collections. In addition to Hieronymus Bosch’s Last Judgment, other historical masterpieces by Sandro Botticelli, Daniel Cho-dowiecki, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Albrecht Dürer, Anthracite and others are on display, Albrecht Dürer, Anthonis van Dyck, Barent Fabritius, Hans Baldung Grien, Samuel van Hoogstraten, Martin van Meytens, Adriaen van Ostade, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob van Ruisdael, Rachel Ruysch, Pierre Subleyras, David Teniers the Younger, Anna Dorothea Therbusch, Franz Zächerle to international contemporary works by Martin Beck, Anna-Sophie Berger / Teak Ramos, Marcel Broodthaers, Lili Dujourie, VALIE EXPORT, Rodney Gra-ham, Ulrike Grossarth, Albert Paris Gütersloh, Marcello Maloberti, Willem Oorebeek, Jeroen de Rijke / Willem de Rooij, Klaus Scherübel, Allan Sekula, Paul Sietsema, Laurence Sturla.

The art collections
The art collections of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna include the Picture Gallery, the Museum of Prints and Drawings, and the Glyptothek. They house about 1,200 paintings and about 160,000 works on paper from the 14th to the 21st century, as well as about 450 plaster casts. The existence of such high-quality and extensive historical collections is a special feature. They are meeting places for research, teaching and art enthusiasts.

Curator’s tour: 11/24/2022, 4-5pm, registration: kunstsammlungen@akbild.ac.at