One of the reasons we wanted to go to Vienna was to see an exhibition of Kubin’s works at the Leopold Museum.

Vienna’s museums and art galleries are mostly arranged in one area of the city, the aptly named Museum Quarter, so despite the raging heat and our incipient hunger we found our way to the Leopold Museum and entered its cool air conditioned spaciousness with growing delight.

By now though we were hungry and thirsty – but the museum cafe does not do food. So we had to go outside to the restaurant. No Wiener schnitzel this time but some quite interesting Asian food. And lovely lemonade.

Kubin is not the most attractive of artists. The self portrait below is one of his least disturbing works. He seemed to live in a nightmare world of violence, fear, mistrust and deviance, yet his pictures are compelling. Horrible yet mesmerising.

But we wanted to see as much as possible – because after all he is family. Perhaps that is a slight exaggeration. My paternal grandfather’s first wife, Wilhelmina Kubin, was Alfred’s cousin. She died when my father’s middle half brother was born. But the family connection was never forgotten!

The exhibition was grim but fascinating, yet we were glad to go and explore the rest of the museum which is enormous.

But that will be another post. Possibly a bit jollier! Let me know if you have come across Alfred Kubin before.