POSITIONEN:

As part of a cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art of Carinthia (MMKK), the Museum of the Nötscher Kreis dedicates this year’s exhibition to the work of the important Villach artist Arnold Clementschitsch (1887–1970). He belonged to the same generation as three representatives of the Nötscher Kreis, Sebastian Isepp, Anton Kolig and Franz Wiegele, and received his first artistic training after a short commercial apprenticeship in Vienna, where at the same time the Nötsch painters studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. After the First World War, Clementschitsch returned to Carinthia, initially lived at the “Rauterhube”, a property owned by his mother in Annenheim, until he moved to Villach in 1923. However, despite the geographical proximity during their course of study and their creative period, Clementschitsch and the representatives of the Nötscher Kreis did not become very close, although they participated in exhibitions together and had the same patrons and sponsors, such as Carl Moll, Bruno Grimschitz, Franz Feldner or the Zernatto and Kleinmayr families.

In a visual comparison of about 50 paintings by Arnold Clementschitsch and the artists of the Nötscher Kreis from privately owned and well-known Austrian collections, both similarities and differences between these painters, who are important for Carinthia, should be transparent and their artistic positions should be made clear.

Curator: Sigrid Diewald