From the middle of the 1960s, Wolfgang Klocker collected works by Max Weiler, Paul Flora and other contemporary Austrian and Tyrolean artists. Many of them belonged to his personal circle of friends and he exhibited their works in his car dealership, founded in Innsbruck in 1972. In the beginning, Emmy Klocker added to the collection only sporadically, but from around 1990 she did so systematically, purchasing works from Austrian and Tyrolean post-war art, in order thus to lay the foundations for a Dr. Wolfgang Klocker Museum. After her death, the Komm.Rat Dr. Hans Klocker and Dr. Wolfgang Klocker Foundation continued the art purchases, since 2012 following the suggestions of a jury. At the time of this being written, the collection comprises around 1,200 works of art.
From 2014, the Klocker Foundation’s art prizes, going hand in hand with purchases, have been marking significant positions in contemporary art, thus also sharpening the collection’s profile in the Austrian context. The objective is to add to the collection’s history in the context of the present-day setting. Since its inception, the collection has been illustrating the attempt to bring together the best in contemporary Tyrolean art in an Austrian context. In the 1960s, Tyrolean artists like Max Weiler, Oswald Oberhuber, Markus Prachensky and Franz Grabmayr entered the scene together with people like Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch, or Christian Ludwig Attersee. It is not untypical that there were no female positions from that time in the collection. This oversight, however, was rectified by the Klocker Foundation purchasing work groups by Helga Philipp, Florentina Pankosta and Martha Jungwirth. The collection is also systematically extended with positions of younger Austrian artists whose work is of significance beyond the region.
The collection’s focus also in future will be Tyrol and the Austrian context. The horizon shall be widened internationally, though, the interpretation of the genres of sculpture and painting adapted to an extended conception of the terms, and a balanced ratio of positions from both sexes striven for.
Discover the almost 1,200 works of our continuously growing collection in our databank. The collection in future will be added to primarily through the purchases of contemporary art in connection with the art prizes. The jury will also annually recommend purchases to the administrative board to supplement the existing portfolio of recent Tyrolean art.
