Max Hollein

Max Hollein (born 1969, Vienna) has been the director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt since 2001, and director of the Städel Museum and the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung since January 2006. He assumes the role of director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco on June 1, 2016.

Hollein was born in Vienna in 1969 to architect Hans Hollein and Helene Hollein. He studied art history at the University of Vienna and business administration at the Vienna University of Economics. During this period, he also free-lanced for the business section of the national daily newspaper “Der Standard”. Following the successful completion of his studies with two master's degrees in 1995, he moved to New York City to take on the position of project director of exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

From 1996 until the end of 2000, he worked closely with Guggenheim director Thomas Krens, initially as “Executive Assistant to the Director“ and, from 1998 onward, as “Chief of Staff and Manager of European Relations“ responsible for key projects such as the establishment of the exhibition halls “Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin” and “Guggenheim Las Vegas”, fundraising, travelling exhibitions, the inauguration activities at Guggenheim Bilbao as well as liaising with European cultural institutions, collectors, media, curators and sponsors.

Hollein is married to fashion designer and author Nina Hollein. The couple have three children and live in Frankfurt am Main.

Hollein has succeeded in repositioning the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt nationally as well as internationally through a highly popular yet challenging exhibition programme from classical to contemporary art mounting up to ten major shows per year. The depth, quality and quantity of the programme has been accompanied by a significant increase in corporate funding. Among the highlights of the programme have been exhibitions such as “Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture”, “Henri Matisse: Drawing with Scissors”, “Yves Klein”, “The Naked Truth: Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and Other Scandals”, “Women Impressionists” and “Edvard Munch. The Modern Eye”. At the Schirn, his frequent collaborator was noted art historian Olivier Berggruen, and for many years now, the Schirn has been the most popular art institution in the Rhine-Main region. In 2012 the Schirn had its best attended year so far with a total of 479,121 visitors. Its online and digital outreach has been significantly advanced and the Schirn publishes its own wide reaching online magazine “Schirn Mag” since 2011.

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