Behind this facade stood the gate that everyone had to pass through to become a painter in Vienna, and anyone who was rejected ended up on the outside.
In 1907 an eighteen-year-old from Linz turned up here for the entrance exam. His sample drawings were judged not good enough, and the following year he wasn't even allowed to sit the exam at all. He stuck around the city after that, slept for a while in a men's hostel and sold cityscapes to tourists. His name was Adolf Hitler, and he carried that rejection with him for the rest of his life.
A year later someone left this place entirely of his own accord. , admitted at sixteen as one of the youngest students ever, grew tired of a teacher who still taught as though it were 1860, and together with a group of fellow students he founded a movement of his own.
Meanwhile, hanging inside the building is one of the most famous triptychs by , , which has been part of the collection here since the eighteenth century.
Two minutes from here is the café where the dropouts used to meet.
Sources. Story: Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, university archive; Wien Geschichte Wiki, Stadt Wien Photos: Akademie der bildenden Künste, Manfred Werner Tsui, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
