NEW YORK, NY.- On October 15, Neue Galerie New York will open “From Klimt to Klee: Masterworks from the Serge Sabarsky Collection.” With this exhibition, the museum honors the life and work of its co-founder, Serge Sabarsky. A tireless advocate for German and Austrian art, Sabarsky was the driving force behind the creation of the museum. He was also a dedicated collector, who acquired numerous masterworks by the artists he cherished. The exhibition demonstrates the range and quality of the Sabarsky Collection, with its holdings in works by Austrian artists Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka, and German artists Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, among many others. It runs through February 15, 2010.

“The Neue Galerie exists today because of the vision and drive of two men: Ronald Lauder and Serge Sabarsky,” said Renée Price, Director of the Neue Galerie. “With this exhibition of selections from the Sabarsky collection, we pay homage to Serge and to his legacy.”

“Nothing in the world had a greater influence on me than my Sunday afternoons with Serge,” said Ronald Lauder, President and Co-founder of the Neue Galerie. “The most important lessons I learned about art came from these discussions with him; I learned to look carefully, to immerse myself, and to follow my passion. These lessons have guided me through the years.”

Serge Sabarsky (1912-1996) had a colorful life. Born in Vienna, he worked as a clown and set designer for Simplicissimus, the leading cabaret of the era. He fled his native city in 1938 and settled in New York, where he worked successfully as a contractor before establishing a gallery for Austrian and German Expressionist art. In his later years, he left the commercial art world in order to organize touring museum exhibitions of his collection. With his friend Ronald S. Lauder, he established the Neue Galerie. Although Sabarsky died in 1996, before the museum came to fruition, his passion, expertise, and generosity have informed every aspect of the institution. Since opening in 2001, the Neue Galerie has enjoyed tremendous success, drawing worldwide interest and realizing Sabarsky’s dream: a permanent home in the United States for German and Austrian art and design of the early twentieth century.