Leopold Museum

Rudolf Leopold, an ophthalmologist, began buying Austrian modernism in the 1950s when Schiele and his circle were cheap and largely dismissed, and he and his wife Elisabeth assembled some five thousand works over four decades. In 1994 the Republic bought the collection into a foundation, and the museum opened in 2001 in the white limestone block at the MuseumsQuartier. It holds the largest body of Schiele anywhere - over two hundred works including major paintings and a great many drawings - alongside Klimt, Kokoschka, Gerstl, Wiener Werkstätte design and Loos furniture. The collection's origins have brought sustained restitution disputes over works taken from Jewish owners during the Nazi period, several settled by payment or return, and the museum now publishes provenance research on its holdings.

What you actually see

• The largest Schiele holding - over two hundred works, paintings and drawings.
• Klimt, Kokoschka and Gerstl - the wider Austrian modernism around him.
• Wiener Werkstätte and Loos - design and furniture from the same decades.
• Published provenance research - the museum's account of disputed acquisitions.

When to go

All year. Half a day.

Honest expectations

It is one of several charging museums in the same courtyard and the costs add up. Schiele's subject matter is frank and unsettling for some visitors. Restitution disputes are ongoing.

Nearby

Mumok is in the same courtyard; the Kunsthistorisches Museum is across the road.