PRESS RELEASE
New Managing Director at the im Kinsky
Otto Hans Ressler, a cofounder of the im Kinsky auction house in 1993, is stepping down after eighteen years as Managing Director.
Ressler, born in 1948, became head of the Dorotheum in Graz in 1978. In 1986 he was appointed director of the art department of the Dorotheum in Vienna after completing training as an appraiser, and in 1992 he became managing partner of im Kinsky Kunst Auktionen GmbH.
Between 1993 and 2011, the im Kinsky auction house achieved a turnover of 250 million euros in 84 auctions under Ressler’s leadership. Among the auction house’s biggest successes was the 1998 auction of the painting “Mädchen” (Girl) by Egon Schiele for 3.56 million euros and 4.437 million euros in 2010 for Egon Schiele’s “Prozession” (Procession)—this is the highest price that has ever been bid for a work by an Austrian artist at an auction in Austria. 2010 was also the year of the highest turnover in the company’s history, at 28 million euros.
After an over 45-year career, Otto Hans Ressler is entering retirement. He will continue to be available to the auction house and its customers as an expert in contemporary art and as an auctioneer.
Nikolaus Schauerhuber will take over as Managing Director as of 2 May 2011. After nearly fourteen years at ORF-Radio Österreich 1 (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation—Radio Austria 1 [Ö1]), where he observed the art market as a specialized journalist, he will now return to his roots, having been “predisposed” to art by his family at an early age and active in the arts and antiques trade, in addition to his studies of history and art history. After several years as a singer and organizer of concerts and festival highlights in the jazz world, complemented by a college course in cultural public relations and cultural journalism at the ICCM in Salzburg, he arrived at a career in radio.
Born in Vienna in 1969, Schauerhuber was from the beginning among Ö1’s editorial staff for the programs “Aktuelle Kultur” (Current Culture) and “Leporello” and active in jazz programming. Starting in 2003, in addition to his work in current cultural news reporting, he also appeared live on-air as a presenter for the programs “gehört.gewusst. Das Ö1 Kulturquiz,” Kulturjournal (Cultural Journal) and Spielräume,
as well as numerous special broadcasts. Throughout the years, the primary focus of his work lay, however, in his true passion, the art market, on which he reported for trade magazines such as Parnass and Weltkunst. He consistently appeared as auctioneer during the past eight years, in addition to his journalistic work.
Please do not hesitate to contact me for any additional information or to place orders for photographs: Iris J. Gradenegger, Tel. +43 1 5324200-11,
E-mail: gradenegger@imkinsky.com
Catalogue orders: +43 1 5324200 or office@imkinsky.com
Online catalogue: www.imkinsky.com
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