Franz Xaver Messerschmidt - From Neoclassicism to Expressionism, 1736-1783

NEW YORK (June 25, 2010) - From September 16, 2010 to January 10, 2011, the Neue Galerie will present an exhibition of work by the eighteenthcentury artist Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. Organized by Guilhem Scherf, chief curator of sculpture at the Musée du Louvre, the exhibition will be on view first at the Neue Galerie, then travel to the Louvre, where it will be on view beginning in late January 2011. This will be the first major museum exhibition in the United States devoted exclusively to this artist, and it will be the first collaboration between the Neue Galerie and the Louvre.

The show will extend the mission of the Neue Galerie, showing the roots of Expressionism and providing for a more complete understanding of the works in the museum collection. It will be accompanied by a full-scale catalogue, to be published by Officina Libraria.

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736–1783) first made his mark in Vienna, where he enjoyed a successful career, including several royal commissions. Working in a neoclassical vein, Messerschmidt produced some of the most important sculptures of the eighteenth century. He presented the individual features of his subjects in a way that did not idealize them. No other sculptor in Vienna at the time was similarly uncompromising when producing portraits.

Around 1770, there was a rupture in Messerschmidt’s life. The artist was thought to have psychological problems, lost his position at the university, and decided to return to Wiesensteig, his native Bavarian town. Messerschmidt devoted himself to the creation of his “character heads,” the body of work for which he would become best known. To produce these works, the artist would look into the mirror, pinching his body and making faces. He then rendered, with great precision, his distorted face. Messerschmidt is known to have produced 49 of these astonishing works before he died in 1783.

This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt
From Neoclassicism to Expressionism, 1736-1783