The Museum Art of the Lost Generation is opening its doors in the Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse in Salzburg. A private collection of more than 300 oil paintings has long been in search of a new home, and has found it here. What makes this collection special is the lives of its artists at a specific point in time.

Most of them studied with famous teachers such as Max Beckmann, Henri Matisse, Lovis Corinth, Paul Klee and Oskar Kokoschka. Many of them attended renowned art schools, such as the University of the Arts in Berlin, the School of Arts and Crafts in Dresden, the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, the Academy of Art in Munich, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. They were the founders and members of all manner of artists’ groups, such as the Berlin Secession, the Hamburg Secession, the Hagenbund, the young Rhineland, the Cologne Progressives and others.

Their styles were as diverse, varied and volatile as the times in which they lived and the lives they led. Cubism, Exressionism, Expressive Realism, Dada, Surrealism, and the New Objectivity – all these styles seemed to suit their era. And yet they didn’t , either. From 1933 onwards, after the Nazis assumed power in Germany, these artists gradually lost their jobs, their dignity, their paintings and even their lives. Their art remained hidden from their fellow men for a long time: lost, absent. They were victims of National Socialism.

After many years of research, and as the result of his trireless collecting activity, Professor Dr Heinz R. Böhme was able to bring together many works of art of this lost generation. These lost artists can now be revealed to the world in the wonderful rooms of the Baron Pranckh House in Salzburg, which was first mentioned in the annals back in 1365. Here, these artists are at last affordes the appreciation that was so long denied them. The Museum Art of the Lost Generation aims to preserve the sense of identity, uniqueness, power and deep emotion expressed in these Paintings, both for the present and for the benefit of future generations.