It was not money that kept Eike Schmidt at the helm of the Uffizi – neighboring Austria – Blog
There is a sector in which Austria competes with Italy: that of culture. I managers who can earn more annually than Italy, as the report of the Court of Auditors does. At the top of the classification is the director of the Albertina, Klaus Albrecht Schröder, with an annual prerogative of 310,700 euros gross, even higher than that of the chancellor, who in 2020 (this is the year to which the report refers) was 306,451 euros.
Much less collects Sabine Haag, director of the other important museum in Vienna, the Kunsthistorisches Museum: for her “only” 258,200 euros. But this compensation was set after her reconfirmation in her position, due to the fact that who was supposed to replace her in 2019, Eike Schmidt, had a surprise resigned from the position. Before her, in fact, she was earning 311,900 euros.
Schmidt, as is known, has been director of the Uffizi in Florence since 2015. He had applied to take Haag’s place in Vienna and had won the competition, but then he had thought better of it, preferring to stay where he was, perhaps because the work at the Uffizi seemed more interesting to him or perhaps also because his wife is Italian. They certainly did not count the money, because at the Uffizi he is paid 145,000 euros a year and, even adding the possible result allowance of 40,000 euros, his remuneration does not come close to the reduced remuneration of Haag.
We mentioned the managers of the two most important museums in Vienna. And how are other Austrian cultural managers doing? The Court of Auditors also informs us that the director general of the Nationalbibliothek, Johanna Rachinger, receives 294,800 euros; the members of the “Direktorium” of the Salzburg Festival have an average salary of 233,500 euros; the director of the Belvedere galleries, Stella Rolling, is “satisfied” with 214,900 euros.
The recent report by the Court of Auditors does not reveal the drama of the directors of the Burgtheater and the State Opera, Martin Kusej and Bogdan Rosic, because it is too recent. But it is known that before their arrival the remuneration was respectively 225,500 and 269,200 euros.
IN THE PHOTO, the German Eike Schmidt, first foreign (and German) director of the Florentine Uffizi gallery, since 2015.
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