Serge Sabarsky (November 3, 1912 – February 23, 1996) was an art collector and art dealer of the 20th century.

Life

Born as Siegfried Sabarsky in Vienna, Sarbarsky worked as a clown and set designer for the cabaret Simplicissimus before fleeing the

Nazis 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 Na ...

in 1938, first to Paris, then, in 1939 to New York. There, he worked as a architectural designer before establishing a gallery for Austrian and German

Expressionist art Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...

. In 1968 he opened a commercial art gallery on New York's

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stre ...

. He also collected artworks by

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 ...

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 ...

and

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 ...

, most of which are now exhibited in the

Neue Galerie New York The Neue Galerie New York (German language, German for "New Gallery") is a museum of early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design located in the William Starr Miller House at 86th Street (Manhattan), 86th Street and Fifth Avenue i ...

. Other artists in the Sabarsky collection included

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th-centur ...

Lyonel Feininger Lyonel Charles Feininger (July 17, 1871January 13, 1956) was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist. He was born and grew up in New York City, traveling to Germa ...

Otto Dix Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Along with Geor ...

George Grosz George Grosz (; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß; July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objec ...

. Together with

Ronald Lauder Ronald (Ron) Steven Lauder (born February 26, 1944) is an American businessman, billionaire, philanthropist, art collector, and political activist. He is the president of the World Jewish Congress since 2007. He and his brother, Leonard Lauder, ...

, he planned the Neue Galerie Museum in New York which was opened by Lauder after Sabarsky's death in 1996 in New York City. The museum café, reminiscent of a Viennese coffee house, bears his name in his honor.

Lawsuits concerning Nazi-looted art

Sabarsky's name emerged in several lawsuits concerning restitution claims for Nazi-looted art concerning artworks by Grosz and Klimt, and there have been calls for more transparency regarding the collection.

Publications

* ''Egon Schiele. 100 Zeichnungen und Aquarelle''. Jesuitenkirche – Galerie der Stadt Aschaffenburg, Aschaffenburg 1994. * ''Ich, Serge Sabarsky. Autobiographie''. Verlag Holzhausen, Wien 1997, ISBN 3-900518-69-6

References

External links

Serge Sabarsky
im Online-Archiv der Österreichischen Mediathek {{DEFAULTSORT:Sabarsky, Serge 1996 deaths 1912 births American art patrons American art collectors American art dealers Austrian emigrants to the United States