Elena Luksch-Makowsky, 'Silver Age and Secession' at the Upper Belvedere, Vienna

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Elena Luksch-Makowsky

23 September 2020 to 10 January 2021 Upper Belvedere

She was one of the key figures of Viennese Modernism. At the beginning of the 20th century, all major Viennese art institutions and media – Ver Sacrum, Wiener Werkstätte, Secession, and Galerie Miethke – featured Elena Luksch-Makowsky's works. The Belvedere will trace the extraordinary career of this artist in an exhibition as part of the IN-SIGHT series: Who was this woman; where did she come from?

Elena Luksch-Makowsky was born in 1878 into a wealthy Saint Petersburg artist family. At an early age she came into contact with numerous artists and traveled with her mother through Europe. She studied first in Saint Petersburg, then in Munich. In 1900 she married the Viennese sculptor Richard Luksch. Her first artistic breakthrough occurred during the fall of 1898 while she was staying in Dachau. Initially, her style was influenced by the Peredvizhniki group, an artist cooperative to which her father's work was attributed. She soon abandoned this style and turned to the Neu-Dachau painters and, through her brother, established close contacts with the artists of the St. Petersburg avant-garde. Luksch-Makowsky participated in Secession exhibitions in 1901, 1902, and 1903. Later, in 1911, the artist, who was now was based in Hamburg, collaborated with the Wiener Werkstätte. In the years that lay in between, she expanded her connections to and within Russia, enriching her artistic oeuvre as well as that of the #vienna Secession with a significant facet that heretofore had yet to be explored. The show at the Belvedere places a particular focus on this aspect of her biography.

The exhibition is designed as a continuation of the large-scale City of Women show of 2019 at the Lower Belvedere. Placing the spotlight on one of the artists presented in 2019, it traces her career as one of the key figures of Viennese Modernism. Elena Luksch-Makowsky's first monographic catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

The IN-SIGHT exhibition series at the Upper Belvedere is held three times a year and focuses on unique features of the museum's own collection. Works of art are examined from a new scientific point of view and are presented to the public.

Curator: Alexander Klee

www.belvedere.at

Vienna