KREMS.- A new exhibition opening today at the Landesgalerie Niederösterreich is rewriting a familiar chapter of art history—this time by placing women at its center.

Titled Vienna modernism. Female. Resistant, the show marks the 100th anniversary of Wiener Frauenkunst, a progressive women artists’ association founded in 1926 by the largely overlooked but remarkably influential Fanny Harlfinger-Zakucka. Running through January 10, 2027, the exhibition invites visitors to rediscover a generation of artists who helped shape modern art in Vienna but were long pushed to the margins of history.

For decades, Viennese modernism has been told through the towering figures of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. This exhibition offers a different lens—one that reveals a vibrant, determined network of women who were working just as boldly, often under far more difficult circumstances.

At the heart of the exhibition is Harlfinger-Zakucka herself, a multidisciplinary artist whose work ranged from painting and printmaking to furniture design and illustration. Born in Lower Austria in 1873, she moved to Vienna as a young woman to pursue artistic training at a time when formal education was largely closed to women. Her early experiments in color woodcut and her participation in key exhibitions alongside leading modernists positioned her firmly within the avant-garde.

But her legacy extends far beyond her own work.

Frustrated by the limitations imposed on women artists, Harlfinger-Zakucka helped found Wiener Frauenkunst—a collective that brought together painters, sculptors, designers, and architects under a shared mission: to challenge gender roles and create new opportunities for women in the arts. Their exhibitions were ambitious, experimental, and often ahead of their time, blending disciplines and rethinking how art could interact with space and everyday life.

The current exhibition reconstructs several of these historic shows, drawing on archival materials, photographs, and surviving works—many of which were believed lost. The result is both a historical deep dive and a visual rediscovery.

Visitors will encounter expressive paintings, bold ceramics, and innovative interior designs that blur the boundaries between fine art and applied art. One section revisits the group’s groundbreaking 1929 exhibition The Image in Space, where entire rooms were conceived as immersive artistic environments. Another highlights their provocative 1930 show How Does a Woman See?, which directly confronted long-standing assumptions about female creativity.

The exhibition also traces the dramatic end of the movement. By the late 1930s, political repression and the rise of the Nazi regime brought the activities of Wiener Frauenkunst to a halt. Some of its members were excluded, persecuted, or forced into silence. What had been a dynamic and forward-thinking collective was abruptly dismantled.

And yet, its influence did not disappear.

Curator Sabine Fellner emphasizes that the group’s ideas—especially its insistence on equality across artistic disciplines and its challenge to gender hierarchies—anticipated the feminist art movements of the 1970s. In many ways, the exhibition suggests, these artists were not just participants in modernism—they were pioneers of a future that took decades to fully emerge.

Today, their stories feel newly relevant.

As museums and institutions continue to reassess the narratives they present, Vienna modernism. Female. Resistant stands as both a correction and a celebration. It brings back into view artists who were once sidelined and restores their rightful place within one of Europe’s most influential artistic movements.

More than a historical survey, the exhibition is a reminder that the story of modern art is far richer—and more complex—than we once believed.