After more than fifty years, the Leopold Museum once again devoted a major exhibition in Vienna to the internationally renowned artist Rudolf Wacker. In doing so, it not only honoured Rudolf Leopold’s deep appreciation for this exceptional painter, but also re-examined Wacker’s central position within Austrian art of the twentieth century. The last comprehensive presentation of his oeuvre had taken place as early as 1958 at the Österreichische Galerie in the Belvedere. We were delighted to support this important exhibition with loans from Leopold Fine Arts.
The exhibition placed Wacker’s work in an international context, presenting it in dialogue with artists such as Otto Dix, George Grosz and Max Beckmann. This revealed how Wacker, positioned between New Objectivity, Expressionism and Verism, developed a distinctive visual language of his own. His paintings focused on the reality of the everyday - landscapes, courtyards, interiors, nudes and self-portraits - investing even the most modest objects with an enigmatic presence.
Wacker’s artistic path led from the expressive, brightly coloured compositions of the early 1920s to a precise and lucid style which, from 1928 onwards, unfolded into a form of almost magical objectivity. His works often contain symbolic and coded allusions, reflecting the turbulent political and social climate of the interwar years. With this exhibition, the Leopold Museum enabled a fresh engagement with an artist who revealed the uncanny, the mysterious and the historically charged within the apparent sobriety of the real.
