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When it comes to biographies, there are two options to choose from: Either you find someone who takes up a life story and writes it down, or you take up the pen yourself. The latter was done by Wilfried Seipel, general director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) in Vienna from 1990 to 2009. He experienced a lot, his memories, a large-format, richly illustrated autobiography, weigh heavy - in the truest sense of the word (2.5 kilograms). The 431 pages are - no matter where you leaf through them - easy to read, lively, colorful, dazzling and very open-hearted.
Wilfried Seipel was born in June 1944 in Vienna. He spent the first years of his childhood as "a great-grandnephew of the former Chancellor" [Ignaz Seipel; 1876 – 1932] (page 100) and his two brothers in Gröbming (Styria). This was followed by elementary school and Schottengymnasium in Vienna, and the high school graduation trip took me to Egypt in 1962. But there was no talk of art, i.e. the KHM, back then. "Early memories of visits to museums with my father, a passionate pharmacist, whose deepest wish to succeed him I was unwilling and unable to fulfill, at least with a guilty conscience, are associated with visits to the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum in Vienna, but not with the Art History Museum." (page 12).
Seipels studied Egyptology and Classical Philology at the University of Vienna from the winter semester of 1963/64 and began his professional career abroad. The content is organized chronologically according to locations, stages of his life and his career as an Egyptologist, excavation director and museum person. Briefly their ranking: Vienna, Heidelberg, Berlin, Cairo, Konstanz, Linz and Again in Vienna 1990–2003. The sections then follow: Causa Saliera, What Else Happened 2003-2009, My Life “Afterwards” and Concluding Remarks including Epilogue and Postscript.
One of his first major successes was the exhibition "Pictures for Eternity", which attracted almost 80,000 visitors in eight weeks in Konstanz, Germany in 1983 and broke all records and expectations. After Konstanz we went back to Austria. On January 7, 1985, at seven o'clock in the morning, at -26° Celsius, he took over the management of the Upper Austrian State Museum in Linz. He frankly admits: "Vanity compels me to say that I passed the service examination with distinction." The years in Linz were followed by the 18-year, very successful term as director of the KHM from 1990 to 2009. During his era, the then Ethnological Museum (today: World Museum) and the Theater Museum were incorporated into the KHM association, to which Ambras Castle in Tyrol also belongs.
Diary entries, which he shares with the readership from page 378 under Postscripta, are enriching. Among other things, he writes here that not everything was always easy and simple. There's also a flashback to an excavation campaign in Egypt in 1975 that put a lot of demands on him: "I can no longer stand the tables with the shards, the excavation equipment, the screaming of the servants and muftis. And that for another six weeks! I'm counting the days." (page 381).
The worldwide media response to his years in Vienna at the KHM, which no one wanted to see, was the Saliera case, to which he dedicates pages 258 to 279. It was stolen from the museum on May 11, 2003, a "beautiful, sun-filled Sunday, also Mother's Day." Seipel, then in Gröbming, records the call from his accountant at 8:35 a.m. in the original tone: "Hello - you heard, Saliera is gone!" (page 258). The horror and media response were enormous, with many calling for Seipel's resignation. He also offered this to Elisabeth Gehrer, the minister responsible at the time. But she voted for him to stay: "You can't stand next to every display case...!" (page 265). Seipel was relieved and remained in office. When Saliera was found buried in a forest on January 21, 2006, a weight fell from his heart. "My life had a new beginning!" (page 274).
A project by the Catholic Education Center in Salzburg shows that you can not only write biographies or biographical life plans yourself, but can also be created through dialogue. In 2015 and 2017, well-known Salzburg personalities were invited to talks in the Salzburg City Library on the topic of “Recounting Experiences”. Andreas Gutenthaler (director of the educational center), who published the book of the same name with the historian Gerhard Ammerer, held discussions on ten evenings. People with an interesting biography were invited. Some of them are known far beyond Salzburg.
Accordingly, the book (224 pages) has ten chapters in addition to a foreword, which begin with Andreas Döllerer ("Tradition and Innovation", page 8ff), the top chef in Gollingen, and end with David Zwilling, the well-known ski racer ("Rasen und Rasten", page 208ff). The other people are: Doraja Eberle, Elisabeth Escher, Elfi Eschke and Reinhard Schwabenitzky, Sepp Forcher, Angelika Kirchschlager, Johannes Perkmann, Edith Tutsch-Bauer and Johann Weyringer.
Introductory essays such as “Refugees and Asylum Seekers – Migration in Austria since the Second World War” (from page 30) written by Gerhard Ammerer provide an introduction to the respective interviewees. After the essay mentioned, Doraja Eberle is introduced on page 38. In 1992, in view of the war in Croatia, she founded the association “Farmers Helping Farmers”. What was influential was her encounter with a war-wounded man who had neither hands nor feet, but could still laugh. Eberle at the time: "If this person without hands and feet thanks God that he is alive, then I will put my life and my two 'haxes', two hands, one brain and one heart, in the service of my neighbor." (page 44).
This biography represents the concept of the book pars pro toto; in which people talk about their lives, with all their ups and downs, according to the motto: Who do you become who you are?
We're talking about Sepp Forcher, whose "birth [December 17, 1930] in Rome was a coincidence" (page 111), as he notes in retrospect. He didn't care about his origins - he grew up poor as the son of a hut owner in South Tyrol: "Oh God, you can't help your origins. You're in the world and you have to thank God for letting you live." Despite his success as a presenter of the TV show "Klingendes Österreich", which had exactly 200 episodes between 1986 and 2020, he always stayed down to earth and raves about Austria: "It is the country that welcomed me 75 years ago. As a child you don't forget how you are welcomed in a foreign country." (page 121).
Personal memories and experiences such as those from Forcher or Angelika Kirchschlager characterize this book. When it comes to her career, the no less well-known opera singer is convinced that personal commitment is important: "You can't 'make' a career. You can only do your best and see what happens." (page 133). When it comes to reviews, she has a clear point of view: "I haven't read any reviews myself for a long time. At least none about me." When it comes to a personal message, a passage from a speech she gave when she was voted Austrian of the Year in 2014 should be quoted: "I would like to take the opportunity today to call on all cultured people to uphold our culture at all costs and by all means! What is required is will, commitment, creativity, courage and reason." (page 142).
Conclusion: "My life - an adventure - thoughts and memories of a museum director" is rich with experiences from around the globe, a colorful picture sheet with celebrities from art and politics. “Experiences told – Salzburg personalities in conversation” presents countless experiences of a positive and negative nature in ten articles; some may be enriching for one's own life. Both books impress with their authenticity. (Thomas Hofmann, November 12, 2025)