Who We Are

The Kallir Research Institute (KRI) is a nonprofit foundation established in 2017 to continue and expand upon the scholarship of art historian and art dealer Otto Kallir (1894-1978). Our research focuses primarily on the Austrian and German Expressionists, foremost among them Egon Schiele, Richard Gerstl and Käthe Kollwitz. The KRI also specializes in the work of artists who were introduced to the U.S. by Kallir—including Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Kubin, and Paula Modersohn-Becker.

Like many who championed modern art in the period between the two world wars, Otto Kallir was keenly interested in the work of unschooled creators. While most closely associated with Grandma Moses, whom he “discovered” in 1940, Kallir also promoted a number of her contemporaries, as well as nineteenth-century American folk painting.  In addition to continuing Kallir’s work in this field, his granddaughter Jane Kallir embraced more recent “outsider” artists (such as Henry Darger, the Artists of Gugging and Michel Nedjar), introduced the work of Ilija Bosilj-Basicevic and Josef Karl Rädler to the U.S., and developed close working relationships with the families of Morris Hirshfield and John Kane.

The Kallir Research Institute owns and administers the former archives and library of the Galerie St. Etienne, which may be visited by qualified scholars upon appointment.

The Kallir Research Institute also oversees the catalogues raisonnés of Egon Schiele and Grandma Moses. In 2018, the KRI launched the digitized catalogue raisonné egonschieleonline.org, which brought the entries on the artist’s oils, prints, sketchbooks and sculptures up to date. The entries on Schiele’s watercolors and drawings are presently being updated. Digitized catalogues raisonnés are planned for Richard Gerstl and Grandma Moses. The KRI provides opinions on the authenticity of works of art attributed to Egon Schiele or Grandma Moses. We do not at this time provide opinions on works attributed to Richard Gerstl.