John Sailer, the founder of Vienna's Galerie Ulysses and a key champion of Austrian avant-garde art, has died at age 87. Sailer opened the gallery in 1974 with Gabriele Wimmer in a garage space before moving to its permanent location at Opernring 21. Over five decades, the gallery showcased Austrian artists such as Hans Hollein, Maria Lassnig, Walter Pichler, Arnulf Rainer, and Fritz Wotruba, alongside American greats like Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, and Helen Frankenthaler. Sailer also worked to promote Austrian and German artists in US museums, notably organizing a Rainer exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum and the Menil Collection, and successfully introducing Lassnig to the New York market at age 70.
Sailer's life story is deeply intertwined with art history and wartime rescue. Born in Vienna in 1937, his family fled the Nazis with help from the Emergency Rescue Committee, securing visas on a list compiled by Thomas Mann and MoMA's first director Alfred H. Barr Jr. that included artists like Marc Chagall and Max Ernst. His death marks the loss of a gallerist who not only shaped the Austrian art scene but also embodied a personal history connecting pre-war European culture, American refuge, and postwar transatlantic art exchange. His legacy underscores the role of gallerists as cultural bridges and the enduring impact of those who survived the Holocaust on the art world.