Museum Art of the Lost Generation – salzburg.ORF.at

“Imagine being born in 1900 – having studied with the great modern masters, Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka – but never having the chance to build your own career. Or a life of your own.”

Prof. Dr. Heinz Böhme is the founder of the Art of the Lost Generation Museum in the city of Salzburg. The now 94-year-old has made it his mission to collect those artists who were killed or expelled by the National Socialist regime in the prime of their youth – before they could make their own name in the art world.

Three decades without freedom in art

Because no generation of artists has been through as much as those who were born at the beginning of the 20th century: two world wars and the barren interwar period in between. That meant no freedom in art for almost three decades.

“In conversation” with Sarah Gruber on December 1st from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Radio Salzburg, Heinz Böhme talks about parts of his past and talks about the founding of the Museum of Art of the Lost Generation, where he and seven employees are now at the reception and dedicated to researching this art era that no one was actually allowed to be. Only pictures, drawings and paintings that the regime liked were allowed. This definitely includes Jewish art: albeit adapted or hidden and preserved at the risk of life.

The deputy museum director and curator Marie-Christin Gebhardt is a guest in the studio and reports on the new exhibition “Reflected” – a social portrait from the years 1900 to 1945, which is currently on view in the Museum der Moderne.

The privately run, non-profit museum would like to give these artists new attention and examine their life’s work biographically. The Böhme Collection currently has around 700 works, including oil paintings, and is constantly being expanded.