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Maria Lassnig Biography

8th Born in Garzern in Kappel am Krappfeld, (AT), daughter of Mathilde Gregorz. Lassnig’s father does not meet Maria until she is an adult. Maria was raised by her grandmother on account of her mother’s occupation.

1925 Mother marries baker Jacob Lassnig and the family relocates to .

Until 1939  Attends the Ursuline Convent School in Klagenfurt, secondary school until graduation.  Drawing lessons from ages 6–10.  Member of the Wandervögel, a back-tonature youth group.

1939–41 Training as a primary school teacher, teaches at elementary schools in valley. Lassnig draws portraits of the children.

1941–43  Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in (diploma)  Prof. Wilhelm Dachauer gives a negative evaluation of Lassnig’s paintings, referring to them as ‘degenerate’. Lassnig switches to Prof. Ferdinand Andri’s class, studies life drawing under Prof. Herbert Boeckl.  Develops her notion of subjective colour

1943 Visits Franz Wiegele (Nötsch Circle)

1945  Returns to Klagenfurt  Lassnig studio becomes a meeting place for artists and writers (including, among others, Arnold Clementschitsch, Michael Guttenbrunner, Max Holzer, Wolf in der Maur, and Arnold Wande.)  Influenced by Carinthian Colourism (Herbert Boeckl, Arnold Clementschitsch, Anton Kolig, Franz Wiegele)  Portraits, nudes, interiors, still lifes, animal pictures Page 2

Starting 1948 Investigates Post-Cubism, Orphism, Surrealism, Automatism

1948  First ‘body awareness drawings’: introspective experiences  First solo exhibition at Galerie Kleinmayr, Klagenfurt  Becomes acquainted with Arnulf Rainer

1951  Relocates to Vienna  Member of the Hundsgruppe (, Ernst Fuchs, Wolfgang Hollegha, , Josef Mikl, Markus Prachensky, Arnulf Rainer). Awarded fellowship for a trip to Paris (with Arnulf Rainer)  Becomes acquainted with Paul and Gisèle Celan, André Breton and Benjamin Péret. The international exhibition Véhemences Confrontées at Galerie Nina Dausset, curated by Michel Tapié, makes a lasting impression with Informal Art and Abstract Expressionist works.  Organises the exhibition Junge unfigurative Malerei (Young Unfigurative Painting) at Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt (with Arnulf Rainer)

1951–53 Informal and Tachist influence gives way to Der aktive Ekel (Active Disgust), Statische Meditationen (Static Meditations), Amorphe Rhythmen (Amorphous Rhythms), (‘dumpling-‘) self- portraits, paintings with a systematized division of planes, monotypes

1952 Second trip to Paris

1954  Returns to the Academy, studies painting in Albert Paris Gütersloh’s master class  Figurative works, portraits, landscapes  Contact with Wiener Gruppe (Vienna Group) writers: Friedrich Achleitner, H. C. Artmann, Gerhard Rühm, Oswald Wiener

1954–56 Kopfheiten (Headnesses), bodies as colour fields

1956 Contact with the circle of artists around Monsignore Otto Mauer and the Galerie nächst St. Stephan (Wolfgang Hollegha, Josef Mikl, Markus Prachensky, Arnulf Rainer)

1958 First body sensation watercolours

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1959/60 Return to the Informal: Tachist body sensation paintings

1961–68 Lives in Paris

1960–62 Large-format body sensation figurations (line drawings)

1963–65  Narrative, multi-figure line drawings: Critical representations of society; caricatured, absurd scenarios, monster-like body sensation pictures  Lamentation paintings (after mother’s death in 1964)

1966–68 Constructive spatial images, near-geometric shapes, anthropomorphic mechanical scenarios

1968–80  Based in New York, several changes of residence there, spends summer holidays in Carinthia  Turn to Realism: (Self-) portraits, still lifes with distorted self-portraits, partly commissioned works  Silkscreen prints  Compares physical sensation to the outer world  The sensation of the body becomes ‘body awareness’.

1970  Attends an animation course at the School of Visual Arts, New York  Body awareness drawings become the basis for (animated) films.

1972 New York State Council Award for the animated film Selfportrait

1974–76 (Self-) portraits with animals

1977 The first retrospective of graphic work, Albertina, Vienna

1978  DAAD scholarship, spends a year in Berlin  Landscape drawings and watercolours, portraits  Contact with Oswald Wiener

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1979 Returns to New York

1980  Appointed professor at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna (at the behest of Minister Hertha Firnberg), first female painting professor in the Germanspeaking world  Represents Austria at the (together with )

1981 A teaching studio for experimental animation is installed in Lassnig’s Experimental Design master class (1980-89).

1982 Participates in 7, Kassel

Early 1980s  Largely does away with realistic representations and portraits  Self-portraits characterized by various burdens and controlling outside forces  Paintings dealing with the pain of the outside world  Watercolours of travels, landscapes  Mythology and the archaic

1984–87 Innerhalb und außerhalb der Leinwand (Inside and Outside the Canvas) series

1985 The first painting retrospective at the Museum moderner Kunst, Vienna, Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle Nürnberg and the Kärntner Landesgalerie, Klagenfurt

From the mid-1980s Narrative, serene images marked by a growing preoccupation with nature and animals

1992 Film Kantate (Cantata)

1995 Participates in the Venice Biennale

1997  Ceases to teach at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna  Participates in documenta X, Kassel

Around 2000  Landleute (Countrymen) cycle Page 5

 Melancholy paintings (Illusionen/Illusions),  Football pictures  Paintings about the relations between the sexes, on the connection between the human and the animal

2003 Represented Austria at the first biennal in Beijing

2005/06  Night or ‘basement pictures’  Safety Curtain for the

Maria Lassnig lives and works in Vienna (AT) and Feistritz ob Grades, Carinthia (AT).

Awards

1977 Fine Arts Award from the City of Vienna

1985 Award from the Province of Carinthia, Klagenfurt

1988 Grand Austrian State Prize, first female artist to receive the award

1998 Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Vienna

2001 Art prize from Norddeutsche Landesbank, Hanover

2002  Roswitha Haftmann Prize, Zürich  Rubens Prize of the City of Siegen, awarded to a female artist for the first time  Ring of Honour at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna

2004 Max Beckmann Prize from the City of Frankfurt am Main

2005 Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art