MUSEUMSQUARTIER, Leopold Museum Presentation

Dr. Rudolph Leopold, an esteemed Viennese physician, devoted himself with great passion and expertise to collecting works by artists belonging to the Viennese Secession movement, bringing together an impressive 5,000 pieces, including paintings, drawings and graphic works.

The museum, which opened in 2001, offers an unparalleled amount of Viennese avant-garde art, exquisitely displayed in an inviting, effective layout.

Along with a number of important works by Klimt, Kokoshka, Kolo Moser and other leading artists, the Leopold Museum focuses particularly on the figure of Egon Schiele, a tormented and thrilling genius. "The ardent, impassioned nature of every person or object painted by Schiele has driven me to collect his works with absolute conviction", the founder of the museum wrote.

Schiele's works illustrate his intense human experience through drawings, watercolors and paintings from the period between his teenage years and 1918, the year of his dramatic death from Spanish flu. The death of the artist coincided with the demise of the Habsburg Empire, which was heavily defeated in World War I....