From July 25 to October 12, 2025, the Albertina in Vienna presents the exhibition “Viennese Bohème: Works from the Hagen Society”
Supply: Albertina Vienna · Picture: Adolf Böhm: “Tree in a storm”, 1897
In 1905 the Hagen Society, fairly sure of its personal significance, donated a bundle of over 800 drawings to the Albertina. As we speak, this Viennese society of artists is certainly considered a forerunner of the Secession and the Hagenbund. Between 1880 and 1900, its members met commonly on the pub Zum blauen Freihaus and at Café Sperl. The convivial ambiance gave rise to lots of of drawings and watercolors by artists similar to Josef Engelhardt, Adolf Böhm, Rudolf Bacher, Johann Victor Krämer, and others.
Based mostly on this donation, the Albertina mounts a firstever exhibition of portraits and caricatures of the group’s members, grotesques, photos of Viennese characters, dream-landscapes, and drawings that already foreshadow the Secession. A number of of those works had been revealed within the artwork journal Ver Sacrum. This present is conceived as a contribution to analysis on Viennese modernism.
