July 19, 2006

Neue drops $50 admission for Klimt exhibition

The Neue Galerie has backed off its plan to charge $50 for a semi-private viewing of "Adele Bloch-Bauer, I" the gold-flecked Klimt portrait the museum's chief benefactor just purchased for a record $135 million.

The decision was made after numerous callers expreessed outrage over the steep price, a museum spokesman told the New York Times.

Regular admission is $15 at the Neue Galerie, which is normally closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The plan for the Bloch-Bauer exhibition was to open from noon to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays for museum members only, along with non-members willing to shell out $50 each to confront thinner crowds than on normal days.

The Upper East Side museum can only accommodate 350 people at a time, and then only 70 in the gallery holding the five Klimts, the Times reports.

"Gustav Klimt: Five Paintings from the Collection of Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer" will be on display through September 18. The five paintings were originally the property of Austrian Jewish sugar industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and his wife Adele. When he fled the Nazis in 1938, his property was seized and the paintings later showed up in Vienna's Belvedere Palace. Only recenlty a court ordered the set returned to one of Bloch-Bauer's nieces, who last month sold the one to Ronald S. Lauder, chairman of the Estée Lauder cosmetics company and co-founder of the Neue.

The Neue Galerie is located at 1048 Fifth Ave., at 86th Street, map.

Earlier: Neue Galerie wants $50 for a less-crowded viewing
Met Museum to raise suggested entry fee to $20
New York museums and gardens with free hours
Neue Galerie to get $135 million Klimt painting

July 19, 2006 07:23 AM in Museums, Sightsology, Upper East Side

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