Leisching, Julius

Date born: 1865

Place born: Vienna, Austria

Date died: 1933

Place died: Vienna, Austria.

Museum director and museum reformer. Leisching's father was a merchant. The younger Leisching studied building principles and ornament after his resettling in Vienna in 1886. He studied there and abroad. In 1892 his Der Façadenschmuck (exterior decoration) appeared. He joined the Wiener Volksbildungsverein (Vienna public education association) as well as crafts guilds in Brünn/Brno. In 1894 he was appointed director of the Mährischen Gewerbemuseums. He founded the "Verband österreichischer Kunstgewerbe-Museen" in 1900 and was a major figured in the "Verband österreichischer Museen" after 1912. After the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of World War I, Leisching left Czechoslovakia for Salzburg, Austria. He became director of the Städtischen Museums Carolino Augusteum in 1921. There he engaged in reforming museum practice. His brother, Eduard Leisching, (1858-1938) was also an art historian.

Leisching's early survey of art history, Die Wege der Kunst, was the model for The Story of Art by Ernst Gombrich (q.v.).

Home Country: Austria

Sources: Gombrich, Ernst. "Old Masters and Other Household Gods." The Essential Gombrich. London: Phaidon, 1996, p. 38; "Leisching, Julius." Museum Aktuell (website) http://www.museum-aktuell.de/index.php?site=wissenschaftler_2&step=2&Rubrik=Musikdirektor; Neue deutsche Biographie; Unser Museum braucht Freunde: 75 Jahre Salzburger Museumsverein. Salzburg: Salzburger Museumsverein, 1997; Husty, Peter. "Julius Leisching . . . [ellipses sic] 'ein durchaus moderner Museumsgestalter.'" Das Wesen Österreichs ist nicht Zentrum, sondern Peripherie: Gedenkschrift für Hugo Rokyta (1912-1999). Furth im Wald: Vitalis: 2002, pp. 131-142.

Bibliography: Das Bildnis im achtzehnten und neunzehnten Jahrhundert. Vienna: Schroll, 1906; Der Fassadenschmuck: eine Studie. Vienna: A. Hartleben, 1893; Die Wege der Kunst. Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1911; Arnold Böcklin: Gedenkrede zu der Böcklinfeier im Mähr. Brünn: Gewerbemuseums [of Mähr]/W. Burkart, 1901.