Galerie St. Etienne is a

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

art gallery specializing in Austrian and

German Expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...

, established in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1939 by

Otto Kallir Otto Kallir (born Otto Nirenstein, April 1, 1894, in Vienna – November 30, 1978, in New York) was an Austrian-American art historian, author, publisher and gallerist. He was awarded the Silbernes Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um das Land Wien in ...

(originally Otto Nirenstein). In 1923, Kallir founded the Neue Galerie in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. Forced to leave Austria after the 1938

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

invasion, Kallir established his gallery in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

as the Galerie St. Etienne, named after the Neue Galerie's location near Vienna's Cathedral of St. Stephen. In 1939, Kallir and his family left

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

for the United States, moving the Galerie St. Etienne to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

.Kallir, Saved from Europe (New York: Galerie St. Etienne, 1999) The gallery still exists,"Galerie St. Etienne"
Retrieved on 28 May 2018 run by Otto Kallir's granddaughter

Jane Jane may refer to: * Jane (given name), a feminine given name * Jane (surname), related to the given name Film and television * ''Jane'' (1915 film), a silent comedy film directed by Frank Lloyd * ''Jane'' (2016 film), a South Korean drama fil ...

at 24 West 57th Street.

Vienna

After antisemitism at Vienna’s Technische Hochschule forced Kallir to abandon his dream of becoming an aeronautical engineer, he decided instead to pursue a longstanding interest in art."Memorabilia From Out of the Wild Blue Yonder", ''The New York Times'', June 13, 1993. In 1919, he established a publishing concern, the Verlag Neur Graphik, on the premises of the Galerie Würthle, a leading art gallery in Vienna.Kallir, Saved from Europe (New York: Galerie St. Etienne, 1999) In 1923, Kallir opened his own gallery, the Neue Galerie, for which the New York museum of Austrian and German art and design was later named. The Vienna gallery opened with the first major posthumous exhibition of

Egon Schiele Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portr ...

's work, and continued to represent artists such as

Gustav Klimt Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's prim ...

Oskar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense Expressionism, expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the ...

, Egon Schiele,

Richard Gerstl Richard Gerstl (14 September 1883 – 4 November 1908) was an Austrian painter and draughtsman known for his expressive psychologically insightful portraits, his lack of critical acclaim during his lifetime, and his affair with the wife of Ar ...

and

Alfred Kubin Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin (10 April 1877 – 20 August 1959) was an Austrian printmaker, illustrator, and occasional writer. Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism (arts), Symbolism and Expressionism. Biography Kubin wa ...

. In addition to the work of Austrian artists, Kallir brought international figures like

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...

Paul Signac Paul Victor Jules Signac ( , ; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style. Biography Paul Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863. H ...

Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that " ...

and

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a ...

to the gallery. Kallir also published limited edition prints by artists like

Max Beckmann Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920 ...

Johannes Itten Johannes Itten (11 November 1888 – 25 March 1967) was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus (''Staatliches Bauhaus'') school. Together with German-American painter Lyonel Feininger ...

, Oskar Kokoschka and Alfred Kubin, and most notably a portfolio of Egon Schiele's etchings and lithographs, ''Das Graphische Werk von Egon Schiele'', continuing to utilize the publishing skills he developed early in his career.

The Anschluss and its aftermath

After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, Kallir faced persecution not only for being Jewish, but for supporting the Schuschnigg government. He sold the Neue Galerie to his secretary, Vita Kūnstler, who preserved the gallery as best she could and voluntarily returned it to Kallir after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Because work by the modern artists the gallery represented was not subject to Austria's export laws and was in most cases, considered by the Nazis to be "

degenerate Degeneracy, degenerate, or degeneration may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Degenerate (album), ''Degenerate'' (album), a 2010 album by the British band Trigger the Bloodshed * Degenerate art, a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party i ...

", Kallir was able to bring a significant portion of the gallery's inventory with him into exile. Kallir and his family initially emigrated to

Lucerne Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label=Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking po ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, but, because he was not granted a Swiss work permit, Kallir traveled to Paris, where he founded the Galerie St. Etienne. Since the French would not admit his wife and two children, the Kallir family emigrated to the United States in 1939.

America

After establishing

's Galerie St. Etienne in 1939, Kallir helped introduce Expressionism to the United States. The gallery hosted the first American exhibitions of numerous important Austrian and German modernists in the 1940s and 1950s, including Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Kubin,

Paula Modersohn-Becker Paula Modersohn-Becker (8 February 1876 – 20 November 1907) was a German Expressionist painter of the late 19th and early 20th century. Her work is noted for its intensity and its blunt, unapologetic humanity, and for the many self-portraits the ...

Käthe Kollwitz Käthe Kollwitz ( born as Schmidt; 8 July 1867 – 22 April 1945) was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking (including etching, lithography and woodcuts) and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including ''The Weavers'' and ''T ...

and Egon Schiele. Through shows, sales, scholarship, and gifts to museums such as the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, and the

Minneapolis Institute of Arts The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...

, Kallir and the Galerie St. Etienne established a place in the American eye for Austrian and German expressionism. The Galerie St. Etienne began representing the work of American folk artists as Kallir attempted to capture the identity of his newfound homeland. In 1940, the Galerie St. Etienne hosted the first one-woman exhibition of the work of Anna Mary Robertson ("Grandma") Moses. The Galerie St. Etienne gained the exclusive representation of Grandma Moses, who became one of the most renowned American artists of the immediate postwar era, in large part thanks to a relationship cultivated by

Hildegard Bachert Hildegard Bachert (April 3, 1921 – October 17, 2019) was a German-born American art dealer and gallery director. Born in Mannheim, Germany in 1921, Bachert moved to America in 1936 to seek refuge from the Nazi regime. In 1940, she began workin ...

, who joined the gallery’s staff in 1940 and later became its codirector. In 1941, the gallery exhibited

Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...

and

Hopi The Hopi are a Native American ethnic group who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census, there are 19,338 Hopi in the country. The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation within the Unite ...

weavings, as Kallir aimed to exhibit art reflective of American identity. The Galerie St. Etienne maintained a long tradition of outstanding scholarship, beginning with the first catalogue raisonné of Egon Schiele's paintings, ''Egon Schiele: Persönlichkeit und Werke'', published by Otto Kallir in 1930. Kallir published an update to this book in 1966, and a catalogue raisonné of the artist's prints, ''Egon Schiele: The Graphic Work'', in 1970. In addition, he authored catalogue raisonnés documenting the work of Grandma Moses (1973) and

(1974).

Postwar Restitution

Given his connections in the exile community and his knowledge of prewar art collections, Otto Kallir made a special effort to assist collectors in recovering art that had been stolen during the Hitler years. At the time, his efforts often met with fierce resistance. However, in 1998, Kallir's records facilitated the seizure of a stolen Schiele painting,

Portrait of Wally ''Portrait of Wally'' is a 1912 oil painting by Austrian painter Egon Schiele of Walburga "Wally" Neuzil, a woman whom he met in 1911 when he was 21 and she was 17. She became his lover and model for several years, depicted in a number of Schiele ...

, on loan from Austria to the

. The case caused Austria to revamp its restitution laws, permitting the return of many looted artworks. The increased attention paid to Holocaust-era looting since 1998 has caused some of Kallir’s early transactions to be questioned. However, no evidence of wrongdoing on his part has ever been found. In a case concerning

Oscar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in N ...

's Two Nudes, owned by the

Museum of Fine Arts in Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, the judge ruled against the claimant, Claudia Seger-Thomschitz. Similarly, in a case involving a Schiele, Seated Woman with Bent Left Leg (1917), alleged to have been stolen from Fritz Grünbaum (a Holocaust victim), the judge ruled in favor of the owner, David Bakalar. The judge stated, “After more than two years of discovery in connection with this litigation…, Defendants have not produced any concrete evidence that the Nazis looted the Drawing or that it was otherwise taken from Grünbaum.”

1978-2020

Upon Kallir's death in 1978, the Galerie St. Etienne was taken over by long-time associate,

, and Kallir's granddaughter,

Jane Kallir Jane Kallir (born July 30, 1954) is an American art dealer, curator and author. She is co-director of the Galerie St. Etienne in New York, which specializes in Austrian and German Expressionism as well as self-taught and “outsider” art. Kallir ...

. Under their direction, the gallery began a program of museum-scale loan exhibitions, a practice then uncommon among commercial galleries. Lenders included the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, the

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was des ...

the Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin, ...

, the

Kunsthalle Bremen The Kunsthalle Bremen is an art museum in Bremen, Germany. It is located close to the Bremen Old Town on the "Culture Mile" (german: Kulturmeile). The Kunsthalle was built in 1849, enlarged in 1902 by architect Eduard Gildemeister, and expanded ...

, the

Lenbachhaus The Lenbachhaus () is a building housing an art museum in Munich's '' Kunstareal''. The building The Lenbachhaus was built as a Florentine-style villa for the painter Franz von Lenbach between 1887 and 1891 by Gabriel von Seidl and was expa ...

in Munich, the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...

in Ottawa, the

Wien Museum The Vienna Museum (german: Wien Museum or ''Museen der Stadt Wien'') is a group of museums in Vienna consisting of the museums of the history of the city. In addition to the main building in Karlsplatz and the Hermesvilla, the group includes nume ...

and the

Belvedere Belvedere (from Italian, meaning "beautiful sight") may refer to: Places Australia *Belvedere, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region Africa *Belvedere (Casablanca), a neighborhood in Casablanca, Morocco *Belvedere, Harare, Zim ...

in Vienna, plus many private collectors. Jane Kallir continued the gallery’s scholarly tradition, publishing over 20 books on such subjects as Grandma Moses, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, the Wiener Werkstätte and Austrian Expressionism (see

Publications To publish is to make content available to the general public.Berne Conve ...

for further information). Her catalogue raisonné ''Egon Schiele: The Complete Works'', was released in 1990 and expanded in 1998. A digital update is available at egonschieleonline.org. In addition to writing short texts to accompany each of the Galerie St. Etienne’s exhibitions, Jane Kallir became known for her annual “Art Market Reports” While continuing to represent Grandma Moses, starting in the 1980s, the Galerie St. Etienne expanded its roster of self-taught artists to include

Henry Darger Henry Joseph Darger Jr. (; April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was an American writer, novelist and artist who worked as a hospital custodian in Chicago, Illinois. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page fantasy novel ma ...

, John Kane, Ilija Bosilj, Michel Nedjar and the Artists of the Gugging. The gallery also expanded its representation of Expressionists, with Germans such as Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner regularly appearing alongside Austrians such as Klimt, Kokoschka, Kubin and Schiele. A major exception to the gallery’s historical orientation was its representation of contemporary British-born artist

Sue Coe Sue Coe (born 1951) is an English artist and illustrator working primarily in drawing, printmaking, and in the form of illustrated books and comics. Her work is in the tradition of social protest art and is highly political. Coe's work often inc ...

, whose oeuvre shares close formal and thematic connections with the work of Käthe Kollwitz. From 2007-2020, the gallery also represented the estate of the American artist

Leonard Baskin Leonard Baskin (August 15, 1922 – June 3, 2000) was an American sculptor, draughtsman and graphic artist, as well as founder of the Gehenna Press (1942–2000). One of America's first fine arts presses, it went on to become "one of the most imp ...

. The gallery was an early member of the

Art Dealers Association of America Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

Art Dealers Association of America
and participated regularly in major art fairs, including the Winter Antiques Show, the ADAA Art Show, and the IFPDA Print Fair (all in New York) and

Art Basel Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach; Hong Kong and from 2022, Paris. Art Basel works in collaboration with the host city's local institutions to help ...

(in

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

, Switzerland). Both Kallir and Bachert received various awards for their contributions to Austrian and German cultural preservation, and the gallery has been honored for its contributions to the

Bennington Museum The Bennington Museum is an accredited museum with notable collections of art and regional history. It is located at 75 Main Street, Bennington, Vermont, USA. The museum's history dates to 1852 when the Bennington Historical Association was first ...

, which is known for its Grandma Moses collection. Hildegard Bachert died in 2019 at the age of 98. In 2020, the Galerie St. Etienne ceased commercial operations and became an art advisory. Its archives and library were transferred to the Kallir Research Institute, a foundation established in 2017. The KRI continues to provide authentications for works attributed to Egon Schiele and Grandma Moses, and cooperates with internationally recognized scholars on pertinent research projects.

Publications

The following publications are associated with the gallery:"Publications"
''Galerie St. Etienne'', Retrieved on 28 May 2018 * Egon Schiele: Oeuvre Catalogue of the Paintings (Crown Publishers, New York: 1966) * Egon Schiele; The Graphic Work (Crown, New York: 1970) * Grandma Moses (Abrams: New York: 1973) * Richard Gerstl (1883-1908): Beitrāge zur Dokumentation seines Lebens und Werkes (Counsel Press: New York, 1974) * Gustav Klimt/Egon Schiele (New York: Crown Publishers, 1980) * Austria's Expressionism (New York: Rizzoli International, 1981) * The Folk Art Tradition: Naive Painting in Europe and the United States (New York: The Viking Press, 1981) * Grandma Moses: The Artist Behind the Myth (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1982) * Arnold Schoenberg's Vienna (New York: Rizzoli International, 1984) * Viennese Design and the Wiener Werkstätte (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1986) * Gustav Klimt: 25 Masterworks (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989) * Egon Schiele: The Complete Works – Including a Biography and a Catalogue Raisonné (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990; expanded edition 1998) * Egon Schiele (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1994) * Egon Schiele: 27 Masterworks (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1996) * Grandma Moses: 25 Masterworks (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997) * Grandma Moses in the 21st Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001 * The Essential Grandma Moses (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001) * Egon Schiele: Life and Work (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003) * Egon Schiele: Drawings and Watercolors (London: Thames & Hudson, 2003) * Egon Schiele: Love and Death (Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum & Hatje Cantz: 2005) * Egon Schiele: Erotica (Paris: Éditions Anthèse: 2007) * Gustav Klimt: In Search of the Total Artwork (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2009) * Egon Schiele: Self-Portraits and Portraits (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2011) * Egon Schiele's Women (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2012) * The Women of Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2015)

References

{{Authority control 1923 establishments in Austria 57th Street (Manhattan) Art museums and galleries established in 1923 Art museums and galleries in Manhattan Art museums and galleries in Paris Art museums and galleries in Vienna Contemporary art galleries in the United States Defunct art museums and galleries in Austria Defunct art museums and galleries in Paris Expressionism Midtown Manhattan