The Viennese Bohème. Works from the Hagen Society

Rudolf Konopa:, The Sacred Art, without dating. 11.5 x 15.8 cm, pencil and watercolor on paper, The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna. © Photo: The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna

In 1905 the Hagen Society, quite certain of its own significance, donated a bundle of over 800 drawings to the ALBERTINA. Today, this Viennese society of artists is indeed regarded as a forerunner of the Secession and the Hagenbund. Between 1880 and 1900, its members met regularly at the pub Zum blauen Freihaus and at Café Sperl. The convivial atmosphere gave rise to hundreds of drawings and watercolors by artists such as Josef Engelhardt, Adolf Böhm, Rudolf Bacher, Johann Victor Krämer, and others.

Based on this donation, the ALBERTINA has put on a firstever exhibition of portraits and caricatures of the group’s members, grotesques, images of Viennese characters, dream-landscapes, and drawings that already foreshadow the Secession. Several of these works were published in the art magazine Ver Sacrum. This show is conceived as a contribution to research on Viennese modernism.