Max Hollein

Max Hollein (born 1969, Vienna) has been the director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt since 2001, and director of the Städel Museum and the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung since January 2006. He assumes the role of director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco on June 1, 2016.

Hollein was born in Vienna in 1969 to architect Hans Hollein and Helene Hollein. He studied art history at the University of Vienna and business administration at the Vienna University of Economics. During this period, he also free-lanced for the business section of the national daily newspaper “Der Standard”. Following the successful completion of his studies with two master's degrees in 1995, he moved to New York City to take on the position of project director of exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

From 1996 until the end of 2000, he worked closely with Guggenheim director Thomas Krens, initially as “Executive Assistant to the Director“ and, from 1998 onward, as “Chief of Staff and Manager of European Relations“ responsible for key projects such as the establishment of the exhibition halls “Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin” and “Guggenheim Las Vegas”, fundraising, travelling exhibitions, the inauguration activities at Guggenheim Bilbao as well as liaising with European cultural institutions, collectors, media, curators and sponsors.

Hollein is married to fashion designer and author Nina Hollein. The couple have three children and live in Frankfurt am Main.

Schirn Kunsthalle

Hollein has succeeded in repositioning the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt nationally as well as internationally through a highly popular yet challenging exhibition programme from classical to contemporary art mounting up to ten major shows per year. The depth, quality and quantity of the programme has been accompanied by a significant increase in corporate funding. Among the highlights of the programme have been exhibitions such as “Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture”, “Henri Matisse: Drawing with Scissors”, “Yves Klein”, “The Naked Truth: Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and Other Scandals”, “Women Impressionists” and “Edvard Munch. The Modern Eye”. For many years now, the Schirn has been the most popular art institution in the Rhine-Main region. In 2012 the Schirn had its best attended year so far with a total of 479,121 visitors. Its online and digital outreach has been significantly advanced and the Schirn publishes its own wide reaching online magazine “Schirn Mag” since 2011.

Städel Museum

At the Städel Museum, Max Hollein has introduced a wide spectrum of new exhibition formats since becoming the director: from small “cabinet exhibitions” on such artists as Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Martin Kippenberger and others, to the “Constellations” series with works of contemporary art from the museum’s holdings. Under his direction, the Städel has realised major exhibitions on the Old Masters, including “Cranach the Elder”, “The Master of Flémalle and Rogier van der Weyden” and “Botticelli” as well as significant retrospectives on modern masters such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Max Beckmann. Under Max Hollein, special emphasis has also been given to the development of the collection: between 2006 and 2012 more than 1,500 works were added to the collection. Among the most significant projects worthy of mention in this context is the major expansion of the Städel Museum completed in 2012 which doubled the institution’s gallery space and created a new wing for the presentation of art since 1945. Both the architecture as well as the significant collection development have been hailed by the public and the media. More than 50 percent of the 52 million euro construction costs have been raised through private sources in an unprecedented fundraising campaign. The Städel was honoured as “Museum of the Year 2012” by the German art critics association AICA in 2012. In the same year, the museum recorded its highest ever attendance numbers, with 447,395 visitors. The Städel is currently significantly enlarging its activities and outreach through a major digital expansion on the occasion of its 200-year anniversary in 2015.

Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung

Under Max Hollein’s directorship, the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung underwent the greatest reorganisation of its infrastructure since 1990. The various departments from Old Egypt and Antiquities, through Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque to Neoclassicism as well as the newly installed “studioli” on the top floor of the museum villa were newly installed under his tenure and reopened in 2008 with an entirely new colour and lighting concept. Funding for this major renovation came to a large extent from private and corporate sources. Exhibitions such as “Sahure – Death and Life of a Great Pharaoh”, “Gods in Colour ”, “Franz Xaver Messerschmidt” and most recently “Jeff Koons: The Sculptor” have been received with unprecedented success. In 2012 the Liebieghaus had 153,737 visitors, making it the best attended year in the history of the institution.

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

On March 22, 2016, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco announced Hollein's appointment as its director, taking over from Colin Bailey who left for the Morgan Library & Museum after a relatively short two-year tenure with the Fine Arts group. His oversight of their two museums, the DeYoung Museum and the Palace of the Legion of Honor, begins on June 1, 2016.

Max Hollein served as general commissioner and curator of the American pavilion at the Seventh Venice Architecture Biennale in 2000, general commissioner and curator of the Austrian pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale in 2005 and curator of the avant-garde festival “Kontra.com” in Salzburg on the occasion of the Mozart year 2006.

In addition, Hollein is a member of various supervisory and advisory boards as well as award juries at cultural institutions worldwide, including the following:

• State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Member of the International Advisory Board
• Palais de Tokyo in Paris
• Istanbul Modern Museum
• Neue Galerie New York
• Ludwig Foundation in Vienna
• Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn
• Berlin Film Festival
• Martin-Gropius-Bau
• University of Applied Arts Vienna, Member of the International Advisory Board
• University of Art and Design Offenbach am Main, Member of the Advisory Board
• Arts Sponsorship Award of the Association of Arts and Culture of the German Economy, Member of the Jury

He has curated numerous shows such as “Shopping”, “Jonathan Meese”, “Julian Schnabel”, “Francesco Clemente” and “Carsten Nicolai”, published a large number of exhibition catalogues and a wide spectrum of other writings on contemporary art, modern art and museum management, and lectured extensively on these subjects as well.

• 2009 – Chevalier dans l`Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture
• 2010 – Austrian Medal of Honor for Science and the Arts
• 2015 – Binding-Kulturpreis
• 2016 – Goethe-Plakette des Landes Hessen

• Kulturministerin Claudia Schmied überreicht Max Hollein das Österreichische Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and Women's Affairs, press release of July 12, 2010.
• journal frankfurt, Website by Journal Frankfurt, accessed on 8 April 2015