Paul Nestlang: Unseen Strangers

Paul Nestlang
Unseen Strangers

Date: May 25 to Jun 14
Venue: LEOPOLD MUSEUM

Paul Nestlang went missing on 20 March 2004.

Five weeks later his body was recovered from the Danube. Now, in 2011, the artist\'s work is appearing for the first time in an unusual and exclusive art book from the Brandstätter publishing house.

The book presentation on 25 May 2011 is also the opening of a two-week exhibition of the artist\'s cycle Unseen Strangers in the Atrium of the Leopold Museum. The show will feature approximately fifteen works from the cycle, which was painted between 2002 and 2004.

In these paintings, the artist undertakes an intensive exploration of human existence. Corporeality is central, whether in individual portraits or entire series: fear, love, sorrow, joy and death are the themes. With great insight and spiritual maturity, and with particularly striking artistic mastery, Paul Nestlang reveals aspects of the human condition to the beholder.

Rudolf Leopold was the first to recognise the significance of Paul Nestlang\'s work, and between 2003 and 2005 he acquired a number of the artist\'s most important works for his collection. The interest in Paul Nestlang displayed by Rudolf Leopold should come as no surprise: he was fascinated by the quality of the artist\'s work, and by the urgency of his depictions. Nestlang\'s art seems to have arisen out of inner necessity, and this links him to artists like Richard Gerstl and Egon Schiele.

In addition to works from the Leopold II Collection, \"Unseen Strangers\" features several important works from the not yet sold estate of Paul Nestlang.


www.leopoldmuseum.org