On Friday, July 29th, 2005, the Leopold Museum in Vienna Austria invited guests to enjoy the 1900s erotic artworks for free if you came to the museum dressed in the spirit of 'The Naked Truth'.

In all, 180 works are on display at the Leopold through August 22.

They include Gustav Klimt's "Nude Veritas," an 1899 painting of a naked young woman with wildflowers in her hair, and Schiele's "Two Female Friends," a 1915 rendition of two nude women entangled in each other's arms.

The "naked truth" is dozens of patrons showed up to the exhibit on Friday, either bikini-clad or in nothing-at-all.

In Rugged Elegant Living, we have a category called "What to Wear." This one would fall under "What not to Wear."

Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and Other Scandals

AP Photographer Lilli Strauss captured a few hearty souls who came out of the heat, or off the beach, and into the gallery full of erotic paintings.

Elisabeth Leopold, who founded the museum with her husband, Rudolf said:

We find a naked body every bit as beautiful as a clothed one.

If they came only out of lust, we have to accept that. We stand for the truth.

Peter Weinhaeupl, the Leopold's commercial director, said the goal was twofold — help people beat the heat while creating a mini-scandal reminiscent of the way the artworks by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka and others shocked the public when they first were unveiled a century ago.

Weinhaeupl said:

We wanted to give people a chance to cool off, and bring nakedness into the open.

It's a bit of an experiment.

Egon Schiele was a young and wild person in his day. He'd want to be here.

The museum's curator Professor Rudolf Leopold states:

The exhibition portrays a society in conflict with modernity.

It shows the Austrian art at the beginning of the 20th century that in its uncompromising modernity had fully left behind fin-de-siecle romanticism.

Sitzender weiblicher Akt - Richard Gerstl

Among the 180 works on view are paintings and graphics by the Austro-German master Oskar Kokoschka, as well as Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), the subject of the new novel The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey, in addition to the post-Klimt Austrian artist Egon Schiele (1890-1918) and an "unrecognized genius" of his time, Richard Gerstl (1883-1908), who never exhibited any of his pictures during his lifetime.

To this day, these artists have not lost any of their social explosiveness.

In addition, for the first time since the museum’s opening four years ago, the permanent collection of turn-of-the-century Austrian art will be shown in a reworked presentation.

On the ground floor, paintings by Klimt, Moser and Gerstl as well as a selection of fine furniture and Wiener Werkstatte objects is on view, complemented by information regarding the works' art-historical context.

Bettina Huth of Stuttgart, Germany, who came baring her bosom, her bottom and her soul:

I go into the steam bath every week, so I'm used to being naked.

I think there's a double morality, especially in America.

We lived in California for two years, and I found it strange that my children had to cover themselves up at the beach when they were only 3 or 4 years old. That's ridiculous.

Artwork & Patron on Display

The Viennese were scandalized when native art nouveau masters like Klimt -- best known for his sensuous "The Kiss" and the subject of an upcoming film starring John Malkovich -- began producing works that some critics called "indecent" and "artistic self-pollution".

Mario Vorhemes, a 20-year-old Vienna resident who strode into the Leopold on Friday wearing nothing but a green and black Speedo, was nonchalant.

"What's the big deal?" he asked. "We're born naked into this world. Why can't we walk around in it without clothes from time to time?"

The Leopold Museum in Vienna's MuseumsQuartier belongs to the artistic and cultural main attractions in Vienna's historic center.

After only four years of operation, the Museum Quarter has become one of the world's 10 largest and most popular museum and exhibition venues, rivaling the likes of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Pompidou Center in Paris.

One critic wrote that the cultural megaplex, with almost 650,000 square feet of space, has bridged the gap between the imperial relics of the Habsburgs and the edgy art movements that have emerged in Vienna in recent decades.

Eric Planin of The Washington Post and Laurie McGinley, staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal wrote after a recent trip to Austria:

More than 2.6 million people flock to the MQ every year, securing Vienna's reputation as one of the cultural crossroads in Europe.

The complex's director, Wolfgang Waldner, calls it a prime example of a "third place" -- a 21st century hybrid of hangout and multi-sensory cultural experience. "The idea is to create places in the center of cities that are culturally charged," he told us in an interview. "People come because of the atmosphere."

For further information regarding The Leopold Museum and its current exhibit which offers plenty of atmosphere, please visit:

Inspire & Be Inspired.

Here's to healthy, adventuresome, soulful, "getting more than you expected to pay for" living!

~ Jennifer Carolyn King, Rugged Elegance, LLC