Paris - Vienna : modern art markets and the transmission of culture, 1873-1937

Organized chronologically in four chapters, this dissertation provides a broad-based account of the cultural transfers between Paris and Vienna at a time of increased artistic mobility. Focusing on the period between the 1873 World Exposition in Vienna and the 1937 Exposition of Austrian Art in Paris, the study seeks to elucidate what specific works of art were transferred from one cultural region into the other, and how they were appropriated within different regimes of value. While Paris managed to establish itself as the capital of the modern art market with exports on a large scale, Vienna faced tremendous difficulties in its attempt to become a major player in the European art world. How the cultural optimism before the Vienna World Exposition turned into a deep and sustained economic depression is examined in chapter one. Consequently, a number of Austrian artists decided to seek their fortune in Paris where the powerful art dealer Charles Sedelmeyer managed some of their careers. Chapter two shows how the grandes machines, theatrically presented and toured internationally by dealers, became the target of criticism. While the Vienna Secession intensified contacts to French artists, dealers, and collectors, intimate displays and clear narratives were able to disguise the commercial character of its shows. The role of Carl Moll for the importation of French modernism is considered in chapter three. Not only did he serve as director of the Galerie Miethke but was also instrumental in the foundation of a museum of modern art in Vienna. The study closes with a discussion of the impressive Exposition of Austrian Art at the Jeu de Paume which is exemplary for the French government’s active foreign cultural politics after World War I and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire. A powerful gallery-system, able to implement and sustain Austrian art on foreign markets, never developed in Vienna where private patronage and artists associations continued to play a much more significant role.