In 2020 the Wachau celebrates its twentieth anniversary as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. To mark this occasion, an extensive exhibition will illustrate what contribution artists have made to the establishment of today’s World Heritage Site. In their works, painters, draftsmen and -women, and photographers have not only celebrated the picturesque qualities of this area; they have also advocated for the protection of this landscape, thus creating an awareness for this inherited treasure.

In the early nineteenth century, artists were already capturing the Wachau in their works, and by the 1870s, artists such as Robert Russ, Emil Jakob Schindler, and Eduard Peithner von Lichtenfels had chosen the Wachau as a favored place for their artistic studies. The region attracted many other artists as well, including Tina Blau and Marie Egner. But it was also artists of Classical Modernism, such as Anton Faistauer, Oskar Laske, and Franz von Zülow, who made crucial contributions to anchoring the Wachau in our consciousness.

The exhibition extends over some 150 years, from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century, and features nearly 500 works, primarily treasures from the State Collections of Lower Austria and including some of the great “icons” of Wachau painting.

Curator: Wolfgang Krug