Image: Neue Galerie, New York
Neue Galerie New York is marking Gustav Klimt’s birthday with renewed attention to one of the museum’s central artists as it prepares to reopen in Autumn 2026 after restoration. The museum said Klimt, born July 14, 1862, remains a key figure in its collection and that all galleries, including the Klimt Gallery, will reopen with the museum’s 25th anniversary exhibition.
The announcement arrives during a year that also marks the 25th anniversary of Neue Galerie’s founding in 2001. According to the museum’s exhibition page, the reopening presentation, titled '25th Anniversary Exhibition: Masterworks from the Neue Galerie', will fill the entirety of the landmark Museum Mile building. The exhibition is organized in conjunction with the anniversary and is described as a celebration of the institution’s collection and mission.
Neue Galerie says its holdings are focused on early twentieth-century Austrian and German art and design, with two exhibition floors devoted to works from Vienna around 1900 and to German modernism. The collection includes art by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Richard Gerstl and Alfred Kubin, alongside decorative arts by figures associated with the Wiener Werkstätte such as Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser and Dagobert Peche, as well as architects Adolf Loos and Otto Wagner. On the German side, the museum gives special attention to Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Gabriele Münter, and also holds work associated with the Bauhaus and Paul Klee.
Klimt’s importance to the museum is underscored by the dedicated Klimt Gallery on the second floor, which permanently presents an array of his paintings. Among the best-known works in the room is 'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I' (1907), the artist’s celebrated portrait that Neue Galerie identifies as the “Woman in Gold.” The museum notes that the painting is on permanent view and that it is the only full-length portrait Klimt ever made of Adele Bloch-Bauer.
The exhibition page for '25th Anniversary Exhibition: Masterworks from the Neue Galerie' identifies 'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I' as one of the collection highlights to be featured when the museum reopens. The work was acquired by Ronald S. Lauder in 2006 and has been on permanent view at Neue Galerie since then, following its restitution to the Bloch-Bauer heirs after a landmark case. The museum describes the painting as a signature example of Klimt’s “golden style.”
Neue Galerie has also recently used Klimt-focused programming to frame the artist’s broader range. A 2024 special exhibition, 'Klimt Landscapes', featured significant paintings made during Klimt’s summer holidays in the Austrian countryside and included works from the museum’s holdings alongside loans from institutions and private collections in Europe and the United States. The exhibition page describes Klimt’s landscape paintings as among the artist’s most sought-after works and situates them within his move from historicism toward Symbolist and later more painterly approaches.
For now, the museum remains closed for restoration, while the Book Store and Design Shop stay open online. Neue Galerie says the full reopening, including the galleries, shops and Café Sabarsky, is scheduled for Autumn 2026, when the Klimt Gallery will again be part of the museum’s second-floor display at 1048 Fifth Avenue.
