Top 30 · Vienna around 1900
The Viennese Secession, laboratory of modernity
Klimt, Moser, Hoffmann and their allies reinvent the exhibition, the book, the object and the city.
Founded in 1897 after a break with the Künstlerhaus, the Viennese Secession wanted to open Austria to international research and give artists control over their exhibitions. Around Gustav Klimt meet painters, architects, sculptors, engravers and creators of applied arts. The classification measures their historical role, the strength of their work, their contribution to collective tools - building, posters, magazine Sacrum Worm - and their influence on Wiener Werkstätte then expressionism.
Artistic freedom thought out even in the poster, architecture and everyday object.
The breakup of 1897
Leave conservatism without imposing a single style
The Secession was born less from a closed aesthetic manifesto than from an institutional desire: to exhibit freely, invite foreign avant-gardes and build an audience for modern art. This opening explains the coexistence of symbolism, landscape, realism, graphics and the first geometric simplifications.
Total artwork
From Olbrich's Pavilion to Sacrum Worm
The Secession building, catalogs, posters and magazine Sacrum Worm form the same visual program. Architecture, typography, mural painting and sculpture interact with the visitor's journey. This method directly prepares the Wiener Werkstätte founded by Hoffmann and Moser in 1903.
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Influence, invention and diversity of practices
The ranks favor the founders and organizers, then the artists who renewed a technique or extended the scope of the movement. Women, long deprived of official membership, are integrated according to their real presence in the exhibitions and networks of Viennese modernity.
The decisive core
Top 10 - The figures who changed Vienna
Painting, architecture, design and scenography converge to invent a modernity freed from conservative juries.
#1
Gustav Klimt
The first president of the Secession, Klimt converted academic allegory into rhythmic surfaces where gold, ornament, and the modern body respond to each other. His work gives movement its most instantly recognizable face.
See the Gustav Klimt collection
#2
Koloman Moser
Moser abolishes the boundaries between painting, poster, furniture and everyday object. His geometric compositions for Ver Sacrum then the Wiener Werkstätte embody the ambition of an art capable of organizing the entire space of life.
See the Koloman Moser collection
#3
Josef Hoffmann
Hoffmann gives constructive discipline to the dream of a total work of art. From the Stoclet Palace to the objects of the Wiener Werkstätte, its grid, its proportions and its taste for detail connect architecture, furniture and decorative arts.
See the Josef Hoffmann collection
#4
Joseph maria olbrich
Olbrich transformed the group's ideas into a building with the Secession Pavilion, completed in 1898. Its white volume, its plant dome and its modular spaces make the exhibition itself a modern medium.
See the Joseph Maria Olbrich collection
#5
Otto Wagner
Wagner brought to the movement a theory of the modern city based on usage, new materials and constructive clarity. The Postal Savings Bank and the Steinhof Church show how structure and decor can move forward together.
See the Otto Wagner collection
#6
Carl Moll
A tireless co-founder and organizer, Moll connects landscape painting, exhibitions and the Viennese market. Its interiors and gardens build a silent modernity through colorful plans and overhanging views.
See the Carl Moll collection
#7
Egon Schiele
Schiele does not belong to the founding core, but he radicalizes the emancipation of drawing opened by Klimt. His angular bodies, self-portraits and cities shift secessionist elegance towards vulnerability and expression.
See the Egon Schiele collection
#8
Alfred Roller
Roller designs posters, catalogs and productions as coherent ensembles. During the Secession and then with Gustav Mahler, he renewed the relationship between typography, image, decor and perception of the show.
See the Alfred Roller collection
#9
Max Kurzweil
Kurzweil combines refined psychological painting with decisive graphic activity for Ver Sacrum. His portraits and prints show how the flexible line of the Jugendstil can carry a very personal concern.
See the Max Kurzweil collection
#10
Josef Engelhart
Co-founder then president, Engelhart introduced the streets, balls, workers and popular stages of Vienna into secessionist modernity. His social outlook broadens a movement too often reduced to just the precious setting.
See the Josef Engelhart collectionMultiple symbols
Ranks 11 to 15 - Interior images and stylized nature
Stöhr, List, Orlik, Lenz and Böhm show that the Secession is never reduced to a single decorative style.
#11
Ernst Stohr
Stöhr develops a dark symbolism nourished by music, solitude and mental landscapes. His role in the group's early days recalls that the Secession brought together sensibilities far more diverse than a single style.
See the Ernst Stöhr collection
#12
Wilhelm List
List combines portraits, landscapes and decorative compositions in a deliberately peaceful range. Its synthetic figures and surface rhythms fully participate in the search for a modern wall language.
See the Wilhelm List collection
#13
Emil Orlik
Orlik brings to the group his mastery of wood engraving and his direct experience of Japan. His portraits and prints favor the economy of lines, flat areas and the international circulation of techniques.
See the Emil Orlik collection
#14
Maximilian Lenz
Lenz unfolds allegorical worlds populated by unreal figures, animals and landscapes. His work recalls the fantastic and theatrical vein present from the first secessionist exhibitions.
See the Maximilian Lenz collection
#15
Adolf Boehm
Böhm is one of the founders from Viennese reform circles. Landscapes, engraved woods and plant motifs translate nature into decorative structures without losing the sensation of the place.
See the Adolf Böhm collectionThe public image
Ranks 16 to 20 - Posters, engravings and exhibitions
The Ver Sacrum magazine and posters transform the typography, reproduction and visual identity of the exhibitions.
#16
Josef Maria Auchentaller
Auchentaller masters the poster as an immediate public image, from the graphics of the VIIth exhibition to advertising for Grado. Its condensed lines and bold colors give the movement a new visual effectiveness.
See the Josef Maria Auchentaller collection
#17
Ferdinand Andri
Andri works simultaneously with painting, lithography, sculpture and architectural decor. His exhibition posters summarize the strength of secessionist language: readable silhouette, colorful plan and monumental symbol.
See the Ferdinand Andri collection
#18
Rudolf Jettmar
Jettmar transforms myths, dreams and landscapes into engravings of great linear density. His severe imagination introduced a visionary dimension into the Secession, far removed from simple decorative elegance.
See the Rudolf Jettmar collection
#19
Leopold Stolba
Stolba explores engraving, glass and ornament with experimental freedom. His work shows how the secessionist laboratory could move from printed motif to object without hierarchy between fine arts and crafts.
See the Leopold Stolba collection
#20
Rudolf Bacher
Bacher brings the group a solid drawing and precise attention to attitudes. His portraits and figurative scenes maintain a fruitful dialogue between realistic observation and decorative simplification.
See the Rudolf Bacher collectionThe city as a total work
Ranks 21 to 25 - Landscape, sculpture and new presences
From architectural decor to invited artists, the movement expands the places, techniques and subjects of modernity.
#21
Anton Nowak
Nowak constructs his landscapes by light masses and color ratios rather than by descriptive detail. An active member of the group, he participated in the opening of Viennese painting to European outdoor research.
See the Anton Nowak collection
#22
Othmar Schimkowitz
Schimkowitz gives a sculpted body to the architectures of Olbrich and Wagner. The gorgons of the Secession Pavilion and the angels of the Steinhof show an ornament thought of as part of the structure.
See the Othmar Schimkowitz collection
#23
Edmund von Hellmer
Hellmer, a renowned sculptor on Ringstrasse, supported the rupture of 1897 and was among the founders. His career links the great monumental sculpture of the 19th century and the new formal freedoms.
See the Edmund von Hellmer collection
#24
Teresa Feodorowna Ries
Invited by Klimt to exhibit with the Secession, Ries imposes powerful female figures in an environment that still excludes women from the Academy. Her Witch overturns expectations attached to the nude and female sculpture.
See the Teresa Feodorowna Ries collection
#25
Broncia Koller-Pinell
Koller-Pinell paints portraits, interiors and landscapes in flat colored areas of remarkable confidence. Close to Klimt's circle, she introduces into Viennese modernity a feminine experience of home, family and workshop.
See the Broncia Koller-Pinell collectionDiffusions and legacies
Ranks 26 to 30 - Women artists, applied arts and expressionism
The secessionist networks continue in the Wiener Werkstätte, illustration and expressionist ruptures.
#26
Elena Luksch-Makowsky
Luksch-Makowsky links Russian training, symbolism and Viennese culture. Her contributions to Ver Sacrum and her exhibitions with the group give female figures an unusual narrative presence and autonomy.
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#27
Richard Luksch
Luksch works on figure, relief and object in the spirit of the total work of art. His sculptures with simplified volumes dialogue with the architecture and interiors of the Wiener Werkstätte generation.
See the Richard Luksch collection
#28
Carl Otto Czeschka
Czeschka condenses stories and ornaments into images of almost heraldic power. His illustrations and objects for the Wiener Werkstätte extend the Secession towards dense graphics which will influence Art Deco.
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#29
Emilie Mediz-Pelikan
Mediz-Pelikan transforms trees, rocks and horizons into psychological presences. Invited in the first exhibitions, she brings to the secessionist landscape a symbolist tension based on careful observation of nature.
See the Emilie Mediz-Pelikan collection
#30
Oskar Kokoschka
Revealed in the Kunstschau community after the split of the Klimt group, Kokoschka takes Viennese modernity towards nervous expressionism. His portraits expose the inner life rather than a stable social identity.
Read the Wikipedia entrySources and extensions
Replacing the Secession in Vienna 1900
The association's archives and public collections make it possible to simultaneously follow the works, exhibitions, building and applied arts.
Course on Alpha Reproduction
A modernity that is built collectively
The Viennese Secession remains fascinating because it does not separate the masterpiece from its conditions of appearance. Klimt transforms painting, Olbrich the exhibition space, Moser the page and the object, Hoffmann the interior architecture: each makes the work of others more visible.
This alliance does not eliminate conflicts or exclusions. However, it opens up a lasting model: artists can invent their institutions, their media and their audiences. From Ver Sacrum to Schiele and Kokoschka, formal freedom also becomes a way of rethinking modern life.
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