Carl Schuch

Carl Schuch is one of the most important Austrian painters of the late nineteenth century. Having always been held in high esteem by other artists, he nevertheless never reached the fame enjoyed by some of his contemporaries. This had mainly to do with the fact that Schuch was a wealthy man and therefore did not push his way into the art market. A perfectionist, he always attempted anew to win the public over with his latest masterpiece, yet was never satisfied with what he had accomplished.
Schuch, who meticulously studied both the Old Masters and the art of his colleagues and captured his observations in his diaries in the form of sketches, was a well-educated cosmopolite whose restless life led him to many art metropolises in Europe.
The exhibition at the Belvedere traces Schuch’s artistic approach, his thoughts as a painter, his models, and his self-teaching by studying masterpieces all over Europe. A special focus of the show is on Schuch’s still lifes, a genre in which he achieved an excellence that puts him on the same level as Édouard Manet and Paul Cézanne and simultaneously illustrates his roots in the Central European painting tradition.