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SAYN-WITTGENSTEIN
Photographs by
Princess Marianne Sayn Wittgenstein-Sayn

8. March 2007– 13. May 2007, daily 10.00 – 19.00 hrs

In this first big museum exhibition of
Princess Marianne Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn
KunstHausWien shows about 160 selected photographs from the time period of 1941 – 2005.

Princess Marianne of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn was born 1919 in Salzburg as the daughter of Baron Mayr-Melnhof and his wife, Countess Maria Anna of Meran, and grew up in the Castle Glanegg near Salzburg as the eldest of nine siblings. Having taken her A-levels in 1938, she studied arts at the prestigious Blocherer Art School in Munich. Already in 1928, Baroness Marianne was given her first camera by her parents and was seized by the fascination of photography which stayed with her all her life

In Munich she met Prince Ludwig of Sayn-Wittgenstein, who was on home leave from the front visiting his aunt Elisabeth of Zwehl. Already a few days later they got engaged to be married.
In the period following Prince Ludwig set up five rooms for himself and his fiancée in the rather dilapidated Castle Sayn, which the family had not been living in for the quarter of a century. At the beginning of 1942 the wedding took place in Glanegg, and only 10 days later Prince Ludwig had to return to the front. In December 1942 the first child, Princess Yvonne, was born and not even a year later Princess Marianne gave birth to another child, the present Prince Alexander. While her husband was fighting at the eastern front, the young princess was living with her children in Sayn or with her parents in Austria.
Fortunately she was staying with her children at her parents’ just before the end of the war, when German troops, fleeing from the Americans who already had crossed the Rhine, blew up the bridge in front of the castle with a bomb. After that, the castle was a scene of destruction inside and on the outside: the roof was collapsed and all windows were destroyed. Prince Ludwig was still at war at this time; he returned from a British POW-camp in October 1946. After the end of the war, the pastor of Sayn accommodated the family. Later, they stayed in several small rented flats in Sayn; they considered to emigrate to Brazil, but finally decided to venture a new beginning in Sayn. Prince Ludwig and Princess Marianne took care of the agriculture and the reconstruction of the castle’s market garden and thus ensured the family’s livelihood.

Their great pride was a small Tempo-lorry with the lettering “Castle Sayn Market Garden” which they used for deliveries of orders as well as for trips to Bonn to elegant dinners with the ambassadors.

In the summer of 1952, the family with meanwhile four children – the daughters Elisabeth and Teresa were born 1948 and 1952 – together with Prince Ludwig’s parents, who had moved from Switzerland to Sayn, could move into their own house, the “Mansion at Friedrichsberg”. Two years later, Prince Peter was born.

When Prince Stanislaus of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn died in 1958, his nephew and heir, Prince Ludwig, inherited the property in Sayn and became head of the family. Only four years later, he lost his life in a tragic car accident in Sayn.

After her husband’s death, Princess Marianne took over the administration of Sayn together with her son’s guardian, until Prince Alexander came of age. From then on, she gradually moved her main place of residence to Austria, where she and her husband had received from her father a small property which they had built a house on in Fuschl am See.

The famous actress Lilli Palmer, one of her best friends, advised the princess not to just give away her very much sought-after photos, but to make photography her profession. Karl Lagerfeld, the great fashion creator and photographer, too, encouraged her to publish her work professionally and so Princess Marianne has been working for various magazines as a photographer since 1970.

She has been taking photographs of beautiful houses and their interior all over the world, accompanied her friend Hans Dietrich Genscher on state visits, made portraits of Lilli Palmer and Sean Connery in the South Seas and was sent, almost 80 years old, to the 24 hours race of Le Mans by the BMW-magazine.

From 1991, her private photographs have been shown in various single exhibitions in Salzburg, Vienna, Munich and Berlin and the first photo volume dedicated to her work was published  in 1999. In 2003, the gallery “Artmosphere” in Salzburg established a permanent exhibition of photos of the “Sayn-Wittgenstein-Collection”, as the collection of more than
a hundred thousand photographs by Princess Marianne is called.

The county of Salzburg awarded Princess Marianne for her great services to the festival city with the golden Medal for Outstanding Services.

Even now, Princess Marianne, called “Manni” by her friends, gives elaborate Sunday lunches for 80 guests during five weeks in summer, which rank among the great society events of the Salzburg Festival summer. And she still travels to America a lot or visits friends all over the world. Her camera is always with her.

The photobooks „SaynerZeit“ (2005, Kulturverlag Polzer, Salzburg, www.polzer.net) and „Sayn-Wittgenstein Collection“ (2006, teNeues Verlag, Düsseldorf/New York, www.teneues.de) will be available at the KunstHausWien MuseumShop.

Press presentation: Wednesday, 7 March 2007 – 10.30 hrs (only with invitation!!)
Exhibition opening: Wednesday, 7 March 2007– 19.00 hrs (only with invitation!!)

For further information and photo material please contact:
Sabine Schmeller, Verena Schrom
KunstHausWien Pressestelle:
Tel. 0043/1/712 04 95-14, Fax 0043/1/712 04 96
e-mail: sabine.schmeller@kunsthauswien.com, verena.schrom@kunsthauswien.com