Founding Director, Heidi Horten Collection
Agnes Husslein-Arco studied art history in Vienna and Paris. In 1981, she opened the Vienna branch of Sotheby’s and led the offices in Vienna, Budapest, and Prague until 2000. Since 2001, she has held prominent roles as a museum director—first at the Rupertinum in Salzburg, and later as the founding director of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg. She also oversaw major cultural projects, including the establishment of the MMKK – Museum of Modern Art Carinthia. From 1990 to 1998, she served as Director of European Development for the Guggenheim Museum and organised both the Guggenheim Association Salzburg and the Austrian Guggenheim Advisory Board from 1990 to 2000. From 2007 to 2016, she successfully managed the Austrian National Gallery Belvedere in Vienna as a general director. Between 2017 and 2022, she was a board member of the Leopold Museum Private Foundation, where she curated the first public exhibition of the Heidi Horten Collection in 2018.
Since 2022 and until end of 2025, Agnes Husslein-Arco has served as founding director of the private museum “Heidi Horten Collection” in the heart of Vienna. The museum provides a permanent exhibition space for the outstanding collection of modern and contemporary art assembled by philanthropist Heidi Horten since the 1990s. From the very beginning, Husslein-Arco has advised Horten on her acquisitions as an art historian.
