VIENNA.- The Art Collections can look back at a successful year in 2024, with two large exhibition projects and the significant development of the collections new web portal – the works of the Paintings Gallery, the Graphic Collection, and the Plaster Cast Collection have been accessible online since August.

In 2024 it was possible to undertake several innovations in the Art Collections, further improving the quality of exhibition visits in the Paintings Gallery and also meeting the demands of a climate- friendly museum. First of all, these were improvements to the Gallery infrastructure, including a complete transfer to LED lighting, which provides perfect lighting for paintings on show and also increases energy efficiency and reduces carbon emissions.

The Art Collections has taken a great step forward for the visibility, accessibilty and research of the collections. Large parts of the inventory of the Paintings Gallery, the Graphic Collection, and the Plaster Cast Collection have been accessible online since August. More specifically, nearly the entire Paintings Gallery collection and a significant number of the 450 sculptures in the Plaster Cast Collection are online, as well as around 9,000 of the 100,000 works held in the Graphic Collection.

In the exhibitions The Art Collections continued to faciliate dialogue between its historical collections and works of contemporary art.“The aim is to reflect on the connections between the past, the present and the future in image production, taking account of historical, technological, and social developments.

Our resolute approach to this is unique among museums today,” says Art Collections director Sabine Folie.

After the highly successful and internationally well received exhibition History Tales. Fact and Fiction in History Painting and a comprehensive publication on the subject, in June The Art Collections opened Considering the Collection & Cranach’s Holy Productivity An Insert by Klaus Scherübel. This presentation of highlights from the collection focusing on Cranach was introduced by an Insert by Montreal-based Austrian artist Klaus Scherübel. A series of top-class lectures on themes addressed in the exhibition is included in the Lektionen / Lessons progamme. The exhibition runs until 16 February 2025.

The first new exhibition in 2025 Wild Apollo’s Arrows. Klopstock Cult & Ossian Fever, will open in March. It is a cooperation project with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna exhibitions department for contemporary art, the Exhibit Galerie. The exhibition includes works from the Paintings Gallery, the Plaster Cast Collection and the Graphic Collection, and also many external loans. It is curated by the illustrator and image historian Alexander Roob, and in addition to the historical works on show it includes contemporary interventions developed in the course of class work by nine students at the Academy. The show will comprise a total of six rooms at the Paintings Gallery and the Exhibit Galerie.

In parallel, the collection will continue to be presented in the Paintings Gallery under the motto of Considering the Collection with alternating thematic focuses. The publication of Martina Fleischer‘s comprehensive inventory catalogue on Italian, French, and Spanish art in the Paintings Gallery presents an occassion for an exhibition with works from these schools: A Vista on Italy and France, from 7 June 2025.

Due to exhibition and renovation works, the Gallery will be partially closed from 11 August to 7 September 2025. The Paintings Gallery is totaly closed from 26 May to 6 June and from 8 September to 2 October due to exhibition installation works. From 3 October 2025 the format Considering the Collection & An Insert by … will be resumed, with highlights from the Paintings Gallery collection – from Bosch to Rubens – and a new installation by the Belgian artist Ana Torfs entitled The Day You Were Thinking About the Sibyl While You Were Picking Autumn Leaves.