Global Speed Lecture Series 2024
Theme: Austria
Date: September 5, 6:30 – 7:30 PM

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Speaker: Jane Kallir
Topic: 

The Kallir Research Institute is a nonprofit foundation established in 2017 to further the scholarly legacy of Jane Kallir’s grandfather, Otto Kallir (1894-1978).  Otto Kallir founded the original Neue Galerie (namesake of Ronald Lauder’s NY Museum of Austrian and German Art) in Vienna in 1923.  Kallir soon became known for promoting Austrian modernists such as Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Kubin, and Egon Schiele. In 1930, he published the first catalog raisonné of Schiele’s oil paintings—a book that became crucial in reconstructing the provenances of works that were later looted in the Holocaust.

In 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria, and Kallir was forced to flee. Because the modernists in whom he specialized were considered “degenerate” by Hitler, he was able to take much of his inventory with him. However, when he finally arrived in New York in 1939, he discovered that none of these artists had any international standing or market.

Jane Kallir will discuss how her grandfather’s efforts gradually helped put Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and other Austrian modernists on the international map. She will also describe her family’s flight from Hitler, and Otto Kallir’s pioneering efforts to help collectors recover Nazi-looted art after World War II.

Speaker Bio:

Jane Kallir, President of the Kallir Research Institute in New York, is the author of over twenty art-history books, including the first comprehensive catalogue raisonné of works by the Austrian artist Egon Schiele. She has curated exhibitions for dozens of museums in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, including the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Columbus Museum of Art; the Carnegie Institute Museum of Art in Pittsburgh; the Indianapolis Museum of Art; the San Diego Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC; the Museo del Vittoriano in Rome, Italy; the Hangaram Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea; the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo; and the Belvedere and Wien Museum in Vienna.