---
type: exposition
title: Franz Barwig the Elder
language: en
url: "https://www.belvedere.at/en/franz-barwig-elder-0"
---

# Franz Barwig the Elder

## Masterpieces in Focus

![Franz Barwig der Ältere](https://www.belvedere.at/sites/default/files/styles/header_cropped_1920x480_fp/public/jart-images/_439886223063.jpg.webp?itok=Cx5GiGI5) 

**Duration:** 16 May 2014 - 7 September 2014

In the series Masterpieces in Focus, this May the Belvedere is staging an exhibition about Franz Barwig the Elder (1868–1931), one of Austria’s most important and successful sculptors of his time. Barwig’s works were exhibited internationally and purchased by major European museums early on. Their artistic significance is also demonstrated by the many publications in international art magazines and positive reviews about his exhibition contributions. Barwig’s characteristic animal sculptures reveal him as a pioneer of Art Deco; his nudes returned to a classical ideal of form expressed in a modern idiom.  

After resigning as professor at the Vienna School of Applied Arts and his unexpected death – Franz Barwig the Elder committed suicide at the age of sixty-three – he was increasingly forgotten. The only major retrospective to date was shown at the Belvedere in 1969. Now, exactly forty-five years on, the exhibition *Masterpieces in Focus: Franz Barwig the Elder* will seek to remind a wider public of the artist’s oeuvre.  

*The exhibitions held within the series Masterpieces in Focus are realized with the kind support of the Dorotheum.*

### [Upper Belvedere](https://www.belvedere.at/en/visit/upper-belvedere)

**Opening hours:** Monday to Sunday, 9 am - 6 pm

**Address:** Upper Belvedere, 1030 Vienna ([Getting there](<https://www.google.com/maps?q=Upper Belvedere,+Prinz-Eugen-Straße 27,+1030+Vienna>))

[Tickets](https://www.belvedere.at/en/tickets?location%5B0%5D=1)

##### In cooperation with 

- [Logo Dorotheum](http://www.dorotheum.at)

## Impressions

- ![Black granite, polished  140 x 77 x 58 cm — Franz Barwig Sr., Sitting Bear, 1912/13 — © Belvedere, Vienna](https://www.belvedere.at/sites/default/files/styles/equal_height_slider_1x/public/jart-images/_439886223065.jpg.webp?itok=du5JN-Ht)
- ![Limewood, carved and patinated  42.5 x 28 x 15 cm  Private Collection, Vienna — Franz Barwig Sr., Sitting Panther, about 1906 — Photo: © Dorotheum, Vienna](https://www.belvedere.at/sites/default/files/styles/equal_height_slider_1x/public/jart-images/_439886223061.jpg.webp?itok=M9PFfcyD)
- ![Franz Barwig der Ältere — Exhibition view, Masterpieces in Focus: Franz Barwig the Elder — Photo: Eva Würdinger © Belvedere, Vienna](https://www.belvedere.at/sites/default/files/styles/equal_height_slider_1x/public/jart-images/_439886223048.jpg.webp?itok=P3_jIJkH)