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Audio Guide
Maria Lassnig was born in the small village of Kappel am Krapfeld in the southern province of Carinthia in Austria on September 8, 1919. She was the illegitimate child of Mathilde Gregorz and Anton Hubinger, and her birth father was not present during her childhood. Her early childhood was one of rural poverty and neglect. Some years after her daughter’s birth, however, Mathilde married the master baker Jacob Lassnig and brought Maria to the provincial capital of Klagenfurt in 1925. Maria would take her step-father’s surname. In Klagenfurt, the young Lassnig attended a strict Ursuline catholic school, where she received a classical education. She excelled in class, though she was often bullied by her classmates for her rural background. Around this time, her mother would give her drawing materials to keep her occupied, and this practice became an escape for the budding artist. At school, she befriended a classmate from an aristocratic background who invited her to attend her private art lessons, and she began copying the drawing works of old masters. Her artistic development was also encouraged by a strange source. Lassnig’s mother, concerned for her eccentric daughter, sought the advice of a renowned clairvoyant, who urged her to encourage her daughter’s artistic education.
Even so, a life in art was by no means assured. After graduating from the Ursulines, Lassnig instead studied to be a primary school educator, and she taught in a remote village. However, the painterly itch never left her. Encouraged by friends, she applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, taking a two-day bike journey with her portfolio to the capital in 1940. She passed the entrance exam and enrolled in 1940. By this time, World War II had broken out, and Austria was controlled by the Nazi government. She was largely politically indifferent, though Nazi attacks on “degenerate” modern art severely limited the art she could study and make. She first took classes with the conservative professor Wilhelm Dachauer, working in a style akin to Rembrandt. She would later leave his class in pursuit of more avant-garde modes, or at least as avant-garde as one could be in Vienna at the time. In particular, she was distraught by her use of color. Lassnig felt that she was too closely inspired by the artists she studied. In response, she developed what she called “vertical color vision” or “absolute color vision” by staring at a patch of color until it began to change into a variety of other hues, giving her a more fluid and multifaceted understanding of how the eye interacts with paint. This compulsion to distance herself from all possible artistic influences and find a style entirely her own would define her artistic education and early career. She graduated in 1945, broadly cut off from the modern and contemporary innovations of the rest of Europe but eager to learn and find her own path. When the war ended, she would have this opportunity.
Even so, a life in art was by no means assured. After graduating from the Ursulines, Lassnig instead studied to be a primary school educator, and she taught in a remote village. However, the painterly itch never left her. Encouraged by friends, she applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, taking a two-day bike journey with her portfolio to the capital in 1940. She passed the entrance exam and enrolled in 1940. By this time, World War II had broken out, and Austria was controlled by the Nazi government. She was largely politically indifferent, though Nazi attacks on “degenerate” modern art severely limited the art she could study and make. She first took classes with the conservative professor Wilhelm Dachauer, working in a style akin to Rembrandt. She would later leave his class in pursuit of more avant-garde modes, or at least as avant-garde as one could be in Vienna at the time. In particular, she was distraught by her use of color. Lassnig felt that she was too closely inspired by the artists she studied. In response, she developed what she called “vertical color vision” or “absolute color vision” by staring at a patch of color until it began to change into a variety of other hues, giving her a more fluid and multifaceted understanding of how the eye interacts with paint. This compulsion to distance herself from all possible artistic influences and find a style entirely her own would define her artistic education and early career. She graduated in 1945, broadly cut off from the modern and contemporary innovations of the rest of Europe but eager to learn and find her own path. When the war ended, she would have this opportunity.
In 1945, Maria Lassnig set up her studio in Klagenfurt, and it quickly became a haunt of artists, writers, and intellectuals. It was in 1947, still distrustful of the notion of objective color and representation, that Lassnig began to incorporate her own subjective feelings into her depictions on the canvas. At the time she called these momentary physical states “introspective experiences”; later she would dub them Body Awareness paintings, perhaps her most famous artistic innovation. She held her first solo exhibition in 1949 at the Kleinmayr Gallery in Klagenfurt, featuring her Expressionist paintings.
It was during this period that Lassnig finally had access to a whole world of modern art that had been denied to her by political circumstances. After the war, Austria was divided into four occupation zones, and Carinthia came under British control. The British and French governments organized cultural events, including several exhibitions of Modernist art. Lassnig traveled to see many of these exhibitions. She was particularly struck by a show of original works by Cubism co-founder Georges Braque. She began to break up her canvases into color planes and geometric forms. Lassnig later encountered Surrealism as well. Surrealist literature was introduced to her circle by the poet Max Hölzer, among others. Then, when she visited the first post-war Venice Biennale in 1948, she was exposed to Surrealist painting, seeing the works of Max Ernst and others. She would go on to draw her own Surrealist self-portraits and automatic drawings, a detour in her practice that shared features with her later Body Awareness paintings.
The 1950s saw a series of shifts in Lassnig’s personal and professional life. She moved to Vienna in 1951, where she was already involved in the avant-garde artist group known as Hundsgruppe, or Dog Pack. She traveled to Paris in 1951 on scholarships, and there she met several of the leading cultural figures of the day. She was deeply impressed by an exhibition of American Abstract Expressionism and European Art Informel, a style of informal, non-geometric, highly gestural abstract art. She became a major proponent of Art Informel in Austria throughout the 1950s, even organizing its first exhibition in the country, which caused a stir. Yet even when she adopted these styles, it never simple imitation; rather, she would adapt these modes to her nascent Body Awareness painting. Success was still elusive, however. In her decade in Vienna in the 1950s, she lived an extremely spartan lifestyle, and her work went largely unrecognized.
It was during this period that Lassnig finally had access to a whole world of modern art that had been denied to her by political circumstances. After the war, Austria was divided into four occupation zones, and Carinthia came under British control. The British and French governments organized cultural events, including several exhibitions of Modernist art. Lassnig traveled to see many of these exhibitions. She was particularly struck by a show of original works by Cubism co-founder Georges Braque. She began to break up her canvases into color planes and geometric forms. Lassnig later encountered Surrealism as well. Surrealist literature was introduced to her circle by the poet Max Hölzer, among others. Then, when she visited the first post-war Venice Biennale in 1948, she was exposed to Surrealist painting, seeing the works of Max Ernst and others. She would go on to draw her own Surrealist self-portraits and automatic drawings, a detour in her practice that shared features with her later Body Awareness paintings.
The 1950s saw a series of shifts in Lassnig’s personal and professional life. She moved to Vienna in 1951, where she was already involved in the avant-garde artist group known as Hundsgruppe, or Dog Pack. She traveled to Paris in 1951 on scholarships, and there she met several of the leading cultural figures of the day. She was deeply impressed by an exhibition of American Abstract Expressionism and European Art Informel, a style of informal, non-geometric, highly gestural abstract art. She became a major proponent of Art Informel in Austria throughout the 1950s, even organizing its first exhibition in the country, which caused a stir. Yet even when she adopted these styles, it never simple imitation; rather, she would adapt these modes to her nascent Body Awareness painting. Success was still elusive, however. In her decade in Vienna in the 1950s, she lived an extremely spartan lifestyle, and her work went largely unrecognized.
By the end of the 1950s, Maria Lassnig was feeling restricted and overlooked by the male-dominated, insular Vienna art world. She had had some success exhibiting in the capital over the past decade, however, and some critics have identified a certain fear of success in her early career. And so, in November 1960, the 41-year-old Lassnig moved to Paris in search of a more dynamic and forward-thinking art community. She bought a studio in a working-class district in the northeast of Paris. Here she had more space than in her cramped Vienna studio, and she began to work in larger formats. For the first time, she was able to paint on a canvas as large as her body. Her Body Awareness paintings shifted from depictions of compressed interior sensations, such as in Untitled from 1960, to expansive exercises in stretching and tension, which she called “Line Pictures.” Apart from her art, Lassnig also wrote articles for Austrian newspapers to make a little extra money. She noted the spread of American Pop Art in Europe, championed by a few pioneering dealers.
Lassnig’s time in Paris coincided with a personal tragedy that would influence her work until the end of her life. In 1964, when the artist was 45 years old, her mother passed away. Though their relationship was often strained by a lack of open affection, Lassnig’s mother was supportive of her career, emotionally and financially. Lassnig called her mother’s death the most terrible experience of her life. Her mother’s death plunged her into a deep depression. She would later talk about this moment as a turning point in her life. Her mother had been managing her affairs in Klagenfurt while she was in Paris, and her death compelled Lassnig to take charge of her career. She expressed her grief through painting, producing a series of “Mourning Pictures.” She continued to deepen her engagement with Body Awareness, applying this mode of painting to portraiture, images of animals, and human-machine hybrids. She continued to achieve modest success in Paris, even showing at the renowned Salon de Mai in 1967 and 1968.
Lassnig’s time in Paris coincided with a personal tragedy that would influence her work until the end of her life. In 1964, when the artist was 45 years old, her mother passed away. Though their relationship was often strained by a lack of open affection, Lassnig’s mother was supportive of her career, emotionally and financially. Lassnig called her mother’s death the most terrible experience of her life. Her mother’s death plunged her into a deep depression. She would later talk about this moment as a turning point in her life. Her mother had been managing her affairs in Klagenfurt while she was in Paris, and her death compelled Lassnig to take charge of her career. She expressed her grief through painting, producing a series of “Mourning Pictures.” She continued to deepen her engagement with Body Awareness, applying this mode of painting to portraiture, images of animals, and human-machine hybrids. She continued to achieve modest success in Paris, even showing at the renowned Salon de Mai in 1967 and 1968.
By 1968, Lassnig was feeling that her paintings had not received their due recognition in France. While she had some success in the country, her work was often dismissed as “German Expressionism.” As she did ten years earlier, Lassnig began planning a move, despite this meaning that she would have to start in an entirely new professional circle once more. Seeing how Pop Art was taking over the Parisian art world, the restless 49-year-old artist decided to go to the source—New York. She was also assured by friends in the U.S. that women artists had an easier time there and could live more independently. She would go on to participate in the women’s movement happening in America at the time, regularly meeting with feminist art groups.
While she hated the noises and smells of New York, she came to love the scale of the city. It was in the U.S. that she coined the term Body Awareness to describe the sensation-based painting she had undertaken for decades now. She first lived in Queens before finding a loft in the then derelict East Village of Manhattan. She frequently visited galleries, seeking a space to exhibit. She was met with rejection—galleries did not understand her Body Awareness concept, and they found her work strange and morbid. It didn’t help that other media, such as conceptual art and land art, were more popular at the time. Her work underwent some stylistic evolutions while living there. She began to paint in a more realist style, creating a series of portraits and still lifes. Triple Self-Portrait is emblematic of this mode of painting. She studied animated film at the School of Visual Arts, and her animations went on to receive more recognition from the American art world than her paintings. She also made several live-action films. In 1974, she co-founded the collective Women Artist Filmmakers with nine other women filmmakers. She owned a refrigerator for the first time, which allowed her to store clays and experiment with sculpture once more. Perhaps taking inspiration from Pop Art, she learned silk-screening at evening classes and set up a small workshop for prints in her apartment.
Lassnig also had some success exhibiting in the 1970s. In 1975, she held her solo exhibition in New York, at Green Mountain Gallery. It primarily featured her realistic figurative paintings. In 1977, she held her first retrospective, of her drawings, at the ALBERTINA museum in Vienna, one of the major lenders to the UCCA exhibition.
While she hated the noises and smells of New York, she came to love the scale of the city. It was in the U.S. that she coined the term Body Awareness to describe the sensation-based painting she had undertaken for decades now. She first lived in Queens before finding a loft in the then derelict East Village of Manhattan. She frequently visited galleries, seeking a space to exhibit. She was met with rejection—galleries did not understand her Body Awareness concept, and they found her work strange and morbid. It didn’t help that other media, such as conceptual art and land art, were more popular at the time. Her work underwent some stylistic evolutions while living there. She began to paint in a more realist style, creating a series of portraits and still lifes. Triple Self-Portrait is emblematic of this mode of painting. She studied animated film at the School of Visual Arts, and her animations went on to receive more recognition from the American art world than her paintings. She also made several live-action films. In 1974, she co-founded the collective Women Artist Filmmakers with nine other women filmmakers. She owned a refrigerator for the first time, which allowed her to store clays and experiment with sculpture once more. Perhaps taking inspiration from Pop Art, she learned silk-screening at evening classes and set up a small workshop for prints in her apartment.
Lassnig also had some success exhibiting in the 1970s. In 1975, she held her solo exhibition in New York, at Green Mountain Gallery. It primarily featured her realistic figurative paintings. In 1977, she held her first retrospective, of her drawings, at the ALBERTINA museum in Vienna, one of the major lenders to the UCCA exhibition.
In 1979, after a year in Berlin on a scholarship, Lassnig returned to New York to find that she no longer felt the city to be her home. The stars would soon align for a move. In 1976, a collective of women artists in Vienna wrote an open letter recommending that Lassnig be given a professorship in her native country. Two years later, she was asked to apply to the Vienna University of Applied Arts. Sixty years old and still relatively unstable in her finances, she accepted the position in 1979. She began teaching in the autumn of 1980, the same year she represented Austria at the Venice Biennale along with VALIE EXPORT. She found an attic apartment that she later expanded into a large residential studio, and she worked here for the subsequent 25 years. With her newfound income, Lassnig bought a house in the countryside of Carinthia in 1985, in the Metnitz Valley where she taught elementary school decades before. A great lover of nature, small woodland creatures came to populate her paintings.
The 1980s saw a revival for painting, a medium that critics had declared dead, and this turn of fate helped Lassnig’s prospects. Several artists of the younger generation saw Lassnig as a role model. She had several career milestones during this decade, showing in documenta in 1982 and holding her first large-scale retrospective in 1985 at Vienna’s Museum of Modern Art / Museum of the Twentieth Century. This retrospective, and the concept of the artist grappling with her past work, may have partially inspired the “Inside and Outside the Canvas” series. Lassnig won the Carinthian State Prize in 1985 and the Grand Austrian State Prize for Fine Arts in 1988, the first time a woman won either.
Lassnig’s master class covered painting and animated film, and the course became very popular. She was a strict teacher, insisting that her students undergo rigorous academic training in realistic drawing and painting. She became professor emeritus in 1989 and retired from teaching the same year. Before she assumed her professorship, Lassnig was afraid the job would leave her no time to paint. The result was quite the opposite—she was highly productive during this time. Her interactions with her students pushed her to engage with the outside world, and she made several canvases that responded to world events.
The 1980s saw a revival for painting, a medium that critics had declared dead, and this turn of fate helped Lassnig’s prospects. Several artists of the younger generation saw Lassnig as a role model. She had several career milestones during this decade, showing in documenta in 1982 and holding her first large-scale retrospective in 1985 at Vienna’s Museum of Modern Art / Museum of the Twentieth Century. This retrospective, and the concept of the artist grappling with her past work, may have partially inspired the “Inside and Outside the Canvas” series. Lassnig won the Carinthian State Prize in 1985 and the Grand Austrian State Prize for Fine Arts in 1988, the first time a woman won either.
Lassnig’s master class covered painting and animated film, and the course became very popular. She was a strict teacher, insisting that her students undergo rigorous academic training in realistic drawing and painting. She became professor emeritus in 1989 and retired from teaching the same year. Before she assumed her professorship, Lassnig was afraid the job would leave her no time to paint. The result was quite the opposite—she was highly productive during this time. Her interactions with her students pushed her to engage with the outside world, and she made several canvases that responded to world events.
In the final decades of her life, Maria Lassnig was still an exceptionally prolific and innovative artist. In this period, she created many new series, including artworks inspired by new research into neuroscience. She painted highly abstract series, such as her “Paint Flows,” while also embarking on what would be one of her most direct, figurative sets of work to date, the “Drastic Paintings.” The latter were dramatic psychological explorations, often depicting states of confrontation or isolation, such as in Self-Portrait in the Snow. Perhaps attempting to counter accusations of narcissism, she began working with live models more often.
Her new innovations in painting were matched with forays into other artistic forms. After she retired from teaching, she made her final film, The Ballad of Maria Lassnig, with the head of her master class animation studio, Hubert Sielecki. The film depicts the artist singing her life story in a variety of costumes against a backdrop of animated scenes from her history. In 2000, curator and longtime collaborator Hans Ulrich Obrist convinced Lassnig to publish extracts from her journal as the book The Pen is the Sister of the Brush. Obrist was convinced that Lassnig’s writing had literary merit, and the artist herself had long toyed with the idea of becoming a writer.
Her international acclaim was on the rise in the 1990s, with major exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Kunsthalle in Bern, among many more. She participated once more in the Venice Biennale and in documenta X. She even exhibited in China in the first Beijing International Art Biennale in 2003 and visited the city as Austria’s representative. Even so, she still felt underappreciated, perhaps nursing resentment from the relative neglect of her early years. Both curators and dealers found her hard to work with at times, and she was reluctant to exhibit or sell her works. This undoubtedly had an effect on her career. Despite this, the 1990s and 2000s were a period of global acclaim, and Lassnig finally achieved recognition as one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century.
Her new innovations in painting were matched with forays into other artistic forms. After she retired from teaching, she made her final film, The Ballad of Maria Lassnig, with the head of her master class animation studio, Hubert Sielecki. The film depicts the artist singing her life story in a variety of costumes against a backdrop of animated scenes from her history. In 2000, curator and longtime collaborator Hans Ulrich Obrist convinced Lassnig to publish extracts from her journal as the book The Pen is the Sister of the Brush. Obrist was convinced that Lassnig’s writing had literary merit, and the artist herself had long toyed with the idea of becoming a writer.
Her international acclaim was on the rise in the 1990s, with major exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Kunsthalle in Bern, among many more. She participated once more in the Venice Biennale and in documenta X. She even exhibited in China in the first Beijing International Art Biennale in 2003 and visited the city as Austria’s representative. Even so, she still felt underappreciated, perhaps nursing resentment from the relative neglect of her early years. Both curators and dealers found her hard to work with at times, and she was reluctant to exhibit or sell her works. This undoubtedly had an effect on her career. Despite this, the 1990s and 2000s were a period of global acclaim, and Lassnig finally achieved recognition as one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century.
In her final years, Maria Lassnig continued to paint, even as age took a toll on her body. In 2004, she had to leave her beloved studio where she had worked for decades because it was a fifth-floor walkup. She had frequent health issues and grew more paranoid about her work, but managed a few final career milestones in the twilight of her life. She had three major retrospectives in 2012, 2013, and 2014, the last of which was held at MoMA PS1 in New York. Lassnig had once said, “I won’t be buried in the ground until I have an exhibition at MoMA,” and this indeed came true. In 2013, she received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale, perhaps the highest honor in the art world.
Themes of death appeared often in her final paintings, such as in Touching the Afterlife. She began her final self-portrait in 2010 and continued working on it until 2013. She would continue painting until January 2014, and drawing up until the very end. She died in her sleep on May 6, 2014. She was 94 years old.
In the years since her passing, Maria Lassnig’s global acclaim has only continued to rise. Lassnig had established a foundation in 2001 to manage her estate and legacy after her death. In 2015, the Maria Lassnig Foundation began operations, helmed by longtime collaborator and friend Peter Pakesch, formerly the director of the Kunsthalle Basel and Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz. The Foundation is a major lender to the UCCA exhibition. The Foundation continues to facilitate exhibitions and events featuring her work around the world.
Themes of death appeared often in her final paintings, such as in Touching the Afterlife. She began her final self-portrait in 2010 and continued working on it until 2013. She would continue painting until January 2014, and drawing up until the very end. She died in her sleep on May 6, 2014. She was 94 years old.
In the years since her passing, Maria Lassnig’s global acclaim has only continued to rise. Lassnig had established a foundation in 2001 to manage her estate and legacy after her death. In 2015, the Maria Lassnig Foundation began operations, helmed by longtime collaborator and friend Peter Pakesch, formerly the director of the Kunsthalle Basel and Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz. The Foundation is a major lender to the UCCA exhibition. The Foundation continues to facilitate exhibitions and events featuring her work around the world.
Early Life and Education
Maria Lassnig was born in the small village of Kappel am Krapfeld in the southern province of Carinthia in Austria on September 8, 1919. She was the illegitimate child of Mathilde Gregorz and Anton Hubinger, and her birth father was not present during her childhood. Her early childhood was one of rural poverty and neglect. Some years after her daughter’s birth, however, Mathilde married the master baker Jacob Lassnig and brought Maria to the provincial capital of Klagenfurt in 1925. Maria would take her step-father’s surname. In Klagenfurt, the young Lassnig attended a strict Ursuline catholic school, where she received a classical education. She excelled in class, though she was often bullied by her classmates for her rural background. Around this time, her mother would give her drawing materials to keep her occupied, and this practice became an escape for the budding artist. At school, she befriended a classmate from an aristocratic background who invited her to attend her private art lessons, and she began copying the drawing works of old masters. Her artistic development was also encouraged by a strange source. Lassnig’s mother, concerned for her eccentric daughter, sought the advice of a renowned clairvoyant, who urged her to encourage her daughter’s artistic education.
Even so, a life in art was by no means assured. After graduating from the Ursulines, Lassnig instead studied to be a primary school educator, and she taught in a remote village. However, the painterly itch never left her. Encouraged by friends, she applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, taking a two-day bike journey with her portfolio to the capital in 1940. She passed the entrance exam and enrolled in 1940. By this time, World War II had broken out, and Austria was controlled by the Nazi government. She was largely politically indifferent, though Nazi attacks on “degenerate” modern art severely limited the art she could study and make. She first took classes with the conservative professor Wilhelm Dachauer, working in a style akin to Rembrandt. She would later leave his class in pursuit of more avant-garde modes, or at least as avant-garde as one could be in Vienna at the time. In particular, she was distraught by her use of color. Lassnig felt that she was too closely inspired by the artists she studied. In response, she developed what she called “vertical color vision” or “absolute color vision” by staring at a patch of color until it began to change into a variety of other hues, giving her a more fluid and multifaceted understanding of how the eye interacts with paint. This compulsion to distance herself from all possible artistic influences and find a style entirely her own would define her artistic education and early career. She graduated in 1945, broadly cut off from the modern and contemporary innovations of the rest of Europe but eager to learn and find her own path. When the war ended, she would have this opportunity.
Even so, a life in art was by no means assured. After graduating from the Ursulines, Lassnig instead studied to be a primary school educator, and she taught in a remote village. However, the painterly itch never left her. Encouraged by friends, she applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, taking a two-day bike journey with her portfolio to the capital in 1940. She passed the entrance exam and enrolled in 1940. By this time, World War II had broken out, and Austria was controlled by the Nazi government. She was largely politically indifferent, though Nazi attacks on “degenerate” modern art severely limited the art she could study and make. She first took classes with the conservative professor Wilhelm Dachauer, working in a style akin to Rembrandt. She would later leave his class in pursuit of more avant-garde modes, or at least as avant-garde as one could be in Vienna at the time. In particular, she was distraught by her use of color. Lassnig felt that she was too closely inspired by the artists she studied. In response, she developed what she called “vertical color vision” or “absolute color vision” by staring at a patch of color until it began to change into a variety of other hues, giving her a more fluid and multifaceted understanding of how the eye interacts with paint. This compulsion to distance herself from all possible artistic influences and find a style entirely her own would define her artistic education and early career. She graduated in 1945, broadly cut off from the modern and contemporary innovations of the rest of Europe but eager to learn and find her own path. When the war ended, she would have this opportunity.
The Invention of Body Awareness
In 1945, Maria Lassnig set up her studio in Klagenfurt, and it quickly became a haunt of artists, writers, and intellectuals. It was in 1947, still distrustful of the notion of objective color and representation, that Lassnig began to incorporate her own subjective feelings into her depictions on the canvas. At the time she called these momentary physical states “introspective experiences”; later she would dub them Body Awareness paintings, perhaps her most famous artistic innovation. She held her first solo exhibition in 1949 at the Kleinmayr Gallery in Klagenfurt, featuring her Expressionist paintings.
It was during this period that Lassnig finally had access to a whole world of modern art that had been denied to her by political circumstances. After the war, Austria was divided into four occupation zones, and Carinthia came under British control. The British and French governments organized cultural events, including several exhibitions of Modernist art. Lassnig traveled to see many of these exhibitions. She was particularly struck by a show of original works by Cubism co-founder Georges Braque. She began to break up her canvases into color planes and geometric forms. Lassnig later encountered Surrealism as well. Surrealist literature was introduced to her circle by the poet Max Hölzer, among others. Then, when she visited the first post-war Venice Biennale in 1948, she was exposed to Surrealist painting, seeing the works of Max Ernst and others. She would go on to draw her own Surrealist self-portraits and automatic drawings, a detour in her practice that shared features with her later Body Awareness paintings.
The 1950s saw a series of shifts in Lassnig’s personal and professional life. She moved to Vienna in 1951, where she was already involved in the avant-garde artist group known as Hundsgruppe, or Dog Pack. She traveled to Paris in 1951 on scholarships, and there she met several of the leading cultural figures of the day. She was deeply impressed by an exhibition of American Abstract Expressionism and European Art Informel, a style of informal, non-geometric, highly gestural abstract art. She became a major proponent of Art Informel in Austria throughout the 1950s, even organizing its first exhibition in the country, which caused a stir. Yet even when she adopted these styles, it never simple imitation; rather, she would adapt these modes to her nascent Body Awareness painting. Success was still elusive, however. In her decade in Vienna in the 1950s, she lived an extremely spartan lifestyle, and her work went largely unrecognized.
It was during this period that Lassnig finally had access to a whole world of modern art that had been denied to her by political circumstances. After the war, Austria was divided into four occupation zones, and Carinthia came under British control. The British and French governments organized cultural events, including several exhibitions of Modernist art. Lassnig traveled to see many of these exhibitions. She was particularly struck by a show of original works by Cubism co-founder Georges Braque. She began to break up her canvases into color planes and geometric forms. Lassnig later encountered Surrealism as well. Surrealist literature was introduced to her circle by the poet Max Hölzer, among others. Then, when she visited the first post-war Venice Biennale in 1948, she was exposed to Surrealist painting, seeing the works of Max Ernst and others. She would go on to draw her own Surrealist self-portraits and automatic drawings, a detour in her practice that shared features with her later Body Awareness paintings.
The 1950s saw a series of shifts in Lassnig’s personal and professional life. She moved to Vienna in 1951, where she was already involved in the avant-garde artist group known as Hundsgruppe, or Dog Pack. She traveled to Paris in 1951 on scholarships, and there she met several of the leading cultural figures of the day. She was deeply impressed by an exhibition of American Abstract Expressionism and European Art Informel, a style of informal, non-geometric, highly gestural abstract art. She became a major proponent of Art Informel in Austria throughout the 1950s, even organizing its first exhibition in the country, which caused a stir. Yet even when she adopted these styles, it never simple imitation; rather, she would adapt these modes to her nascent Body Awareness painting. Success was still elusive, however. In her decade in Vienna in the 1950s, she lived an extremely spartan lifestyle, and her work went largely unrecognized.
Painting in Paris
By the end of the 1950s, Maria Lassnig was feeling restricted and overlooked by the male-dominated, insular Vienna art world. She had had some success exhibiting in the capital over the past decade, however, and some critics have identified a certain fear of success in her early career. And so, in November 1960, the 41-year-old Lassnig moved to Paris in search of a more dynamic and forward-thinking art community. She bought a studio in a working-class district in the northeast of Paris. Here she had more space than in her cramped Vienna studio, and she began to work in larger formats. For the first time, she was able to paint on a canvas as large as her body. Her Body Awareness paintings shifted from depictions of compressed interior sensations, such as in Untitled from 1960, to expansive exercises in stretching and tension, which she called “Line Pictures.” Apart from her art, Lassnig also wrote articles for Austrian newspapers to make a little extra money. She noted the spread of American Pop Art in Europe, championed by a few pioneering dealers.
Lassnig’s time in Paris coincided with a personal tragedy that would influence her work until the end of her life. In 1964, when the artist was 45 years old, her mother passed away. Though their relationship was often strained by a lack of open affection, Lassnig’s mother was supportive of her career, emotionally and financially. Lassnig called her mother’s death the most terrible experience of her life. Her mother’s death plunged her into a deep depression. She would later talk about this moment as a turning point in her life. Her mother had been managing her affairs in Klagenfurt while she was in Paris, and her death compelled Lassnig to take charge of her career. She expressed her grief through painting, producing a series of “Mourning Pictures.” She continued to deepen her engagement with Body Awareness, applying this mode of painting to portraiture, images of animals, and human-machine hybrids. She continued to achieve modest success in Paris, even showing at the renowned Salon de Mai in 1967 and 1968.
Lassnig’s time in Paris coincided with a personal tragedy that would influence her work until the end of her life. In 1964, when the artist was 45 years old, her mother passed away. Though their relationship was often strained by a lack of open affection, Lassnig’s mother was supportive of her career, emotionally and financially. Lassnig called her mother’s death the most terrible experience of her life. Her mother’s death plunged her into a deep depression. She would later talk about this moment as a turning point in her life. Her mother had been managing her affairs in Klagenfurt while she was in Paris, and her death compelled Lassnig to take charge of her career. She expressed her grief through painting, producing a series of “Mourning Pictures.” She continued to deepen her engagement with Body Awareness, applying this mode of painting to portraiture, images of animals, and human-machine hybrids. She continued to achieve modest success in Paris, even showing at the renowned Salon de Mai in 1967 and 1968.
Exploring New Modes in New York
By 1968, Lassnig was feeling that her paintings had not received their due recognition in France. While she had some success in the country, her work was often dismissed as “German Expressionism.” As she did ten years earlier, Lassnig began planning a move, despite this meaning that she would have to start in an entirely new professional circle once more. Seeing how Pop Art was taking over the Parisian art world, the restless 49-year-old artist decided to go to the source—New York. She was also assured by friends in the U.S. that women artists had an easier time there and could live more independently. She would go on to participate in the women’s movement happening in America at the time, regularly meeting with feminist art groups.
While she hated the noises and smells of New York, she came to love the scale of the city. It was in the U.S. that she coined the term Body Awareness to describe the sensation-based painting she had undertaken for decades now. She first lived in Queens before finding a loft in the then derelict East Village of Manhattan. She frequently visited galleries, seeking a space to exhibit. She was met with rejection—galleries did not understand her Body Awareness concept, and they found her work strange and morbid. It didn’t help that other media, such as conceptual art and land art, were more popular at the time. Her work underwent some stylistic evolutions while living there. She began to paint in a more realist style, creating a series of portraits and still lifes. Triple Self-Portrait is emblematic of this mode of painting. She studied animated film at the School of Visual Arts, and her animations went on to receive more recognition from the American art world than her paintings. She also made several live-action films. In 1974, she co-founded the collective Women Artist Filmmakers with nine other women filmmakers. She owned a refrigerator for the first time, which allowed her to store clays and experiment with sculpture once more. Perhaps taking inspiration from Pop Art, she learned silk-screening at evening classes and set up a small workshop for prints in her apartment.
Lassnig also had some success exhibiting in the 1970s. In 1975, she held her solo exhibition in New York, at Green Mountain Gallery. It primarily featured her realistic figurative paintings. In 1977, she held her first retrospective, of her drawings, at the ALBERTINA museum in Vienna, one of the major lenders to the UCCA exhibition.
While she hated the noises and smells of New York, she came to love the scale of the city. It was in the U.S. that she coined the term Body Awareness to describe the sensation-based painting she had undertaken for decades now. She first lived in Queens before finding a loft in the then derelict East Village of Manhattan. She frequently visited galleries, seeking a space to exhibit. She was met with rejection—galleries did not understand her Body Awareness concept, and they found her work strange and morbid. It didn’t help that other media, such as conceptual art and land art, were more popular at the time. Her work underwent some stylistic evolutions while living there. She began to paint in a more realist style, creating a series of portraits and still lifes. Triple Self-Portrait is emblematic of this mode of painting. She studied animated film at the School of Visual Arts, and her animations went on to receive more recognition from the American art world than her paintings. She also made several live-action films. In 1974, she co-founded the collective Women Artist Filmmakers with nine other women filmmakers. She owned a refrigerator for the first time, which allowed her to store clays and experiment with sculpture once more. Perhaps taking inspiration from Pop Art, she learned silk-screening at evening classes and set up a small workshop for prints in her apartment.
Lassnig also had some success exhibiting in the 1970s. In 1975, she held her solo exhibition in New York, at Green Mountain Gallery. It primarily featured her realistic figurative paintings. In 1977, she held her first retrospective, of her drawings, at the ALBERTINA museum in Vienna, one of the major lenders to the UCCA exhibition.
Returning to Vienna - Lassnig the Teacher
In 1979, after a year in Berlin on a scholarship, Lassnig returned to New York to find that she no longer felt the city to be her home. The stars would soon align for a move. In 1976, a collective of women artists in Vienna wrote an open letter recommending that Lassnig be given a professorship in her native country. Two years later, she was asked to apply to the Vienna University of Applied Arts. Sixty years old and still relatively unstable in her finances, she accepted the position in 1979. She began teaching in the autumn of 1980, the same year she represented Austria at the Venice Biennale along with VALIE EXPORT. She found an attic apartment that she later expanded into a large residential studio, and she worked here for the subsequent 25 years. With her newfound income, Lassnig bought a house in the countryside of Carinthia in 1985, in the Metnitz Valley where she taught elementary school decades before. A great lover of nature, small woodland creatures came to populate her paintings.
The 1980s saw a revival for painting, a medium that critics had declared dead, and this turn of fate helped Lassnig’s prospects. Several artists of the younger generation saw Lassnig as a role model. She had several career milestones during this decade, showing in documenta in 1982 and holding her first large-scale retrospective in 1985 at Vienna’s Museum of Modern Art / Museum of the Twentieth Century. This retrospective, and the concept of the artist grappling with her past work, may have partially inspired the “Inside and Outside the Canvas” series. Lassnig won the Carinthian State Prize in 1985 and the Grand Austrian State Prize for Fine Arts in 1988, the first time a woman won either.
Lassnig’s master class covered painting and animated film, and the course became very popular. She was a strict teacher, insisting that her students undergo rigorous academic training in realistic drawing and painting. She became professor emeritus in 1989 and retired from teaching the same year. Before she assumed her professorship, Lassnig was afraid the job would leave her no time to paint. The result was quite the opposite—she was highly productive during this time. Her interactions with her students pushed her to engage with the outside world, and she made several canvases that responded to world events.
The 1980s saw a revival for painting, a medium that critics had declared dead, and this turn of fate helped Lassnig’s prospects. Several artists of the younger generation saw Lassnig as a role model. She had several career milestones during this decade, showing in documenta in 1982 and holding her first large-scale retrospective in 1985 at Vienna’s Museum of Modern Art / Museum of the Twentieth Century. This retrospective, and the concept of the artist grappling with her past work, may have partially inspired the “Inside and Outside the Canvas” series. Lassnig won the Carinthian State Prize in 1985 and the Grand Austrian State Prize for Fine Arts in 1988, the first time a woman won either.
Lassnig’s master class covered painting and animated film, and the course became very popular. She was a strict teacher, insisting that her students undergo rigorous academic training in realistic drawing and painting. She became professor emeritus in 1989 and retired from teaching the same year. Before she assumed her professorship, Lassnig was afraid the job would leave her no time to paint. The result was quite the opposite—she was highly productive during this time. Her interactions with her students pushed her to engage with the outside world, and she made several canvases that responded to world events.
New Styles and Milestones Late in Life
In the final decades of her life, Maria Lassnig was still an exceptionally prolific and innovative artist. In this period, she created many new series, including artworks inspired by new research into neuroscience. She painted highly abstract series, such as her “Paint Flows,” while also embarking on what would be one of her most direct, figurative sets of work to date, the “Drastic Paintings.” The latter were dramatic psychological explorations, often depicting states of confrontation or isolation, such as in Self-Portrait in the Snow. Perhaps attempting to counter accusations of narcissism, she began working with live models more often.
Her new innovations in painting were matched with forays into other artistic forms. After she retired from teaching, she made her final film, The Ballad of Maria Lassnig, with the head of her master class animation studio, Hubert Sielecki. The film depicts the artist singing her life story in a variety of costumes against a backdrop of animated scenes from her history. In 2000, curator and longtime collaborator Hans Ulrich Obrist convinced Lassnig to publish extracts from her journal as the book The Pen is the Sister of the Brush. Obrist was convinced that Lassnig’s writing had literary merit, and the artist herself had long toyed with the idea of becoming a writer.
Her international acclaim was on the rise in the 1990s, with major exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Kunsthalle in Bern, among many more. She participated once more in the Venice Biennale and in documenta X. She even exhibited in China in the first Beijing International Art Biennale in 2003 and visited the city as Austria’s representative. Even so, she still felt underappreciated, perhaps nursing resentment from the relative neglect of her early years. Both curators and dealers found her hard to work with at times, and she was reluctant to exhibit or sell her works. This undoubtedly had an effect on her career. Despite this, the 1990s and 2000s were a period of global acclaim, and Lassnig finally achieved recognition as one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century.
Her new innovations in painting were matched with forays into other artistic forms. After she retired from teaching, she made her final film, The Ballad of Maria Lassnig, with the head of her master class animation studio, Hubert Sielecki. The film depicts the artist singing her life story in a variety of costumes against a backdrop of animated scenes from her history. In 2000, curator and longtime collaborator Hans Ulrich Obrist convinced Lassnig to publish extracts from her journal as the book The Pen is the Sister of the Brush. Obrist was convinced that Lassnig’s writing had literary merit, and the artist herself had long toyed with the idea of becoming a writer.
Her international acclaim was on the rise in the 1990s, with major exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Kunsthalle in Bern, among many more. She participated once more in the Venice Biennale and in documenta X. She even exhibited in China in the first Beijing International Art Biennale in 2003 and visited the city as Austria’s representative. Even so, she still felt underappreciated, perhaps nursing resentment from the relative neglect of her early years. Both curators and dealers found her hard to work with at times, and she was reluctant to exhibit or sell her works. This undoubtedly had an effect on her career. Despite this, the 1990s and 2000s were a period of global acclaim, and Lassnig finally achieved recognition as one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century.
Retrospectives and Final Days
In her final years, Maria Lassnig continued to paint, even as age took a toll on her body. In 2004, she had to leave her beloved studio where she had worked for decades because it was a fifth-floor walkup. She had frequent health issues and grew more paranoid about her work, but managed a few final career milestones in the twilight of her life. She had three major retrospectives in 2012, 2013, and 2014, the last of which was held at MoMA PS1 in New York. Lassnig had once said, “I won’t be buried in the ground until I have an exhibition at MoMA,” and this indeed came true. In 2013, she received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale, perhaps the highest honor in the art world.
Themes of death appeared often in her final paintings, such as in Touching the Afterlife. She began her final self-portrait in 2010 and continued working on it until 2013. She would continue painting until January 2014, and drawing up until the very end. She died in her sleep on May 6, 2014. She was 94 years old.
In the years since her passing, Maria Lassnig’s global acclaim has only continued to rise. Lassnig had established a foundation in 2001 to manage her estate and legacy after her death. In 2015, the Maria Lassnig Foundation began operations, helmed by longtime collaborator and friend Peter Pakesch, formerly the director of the Kunsthalle Basel and Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz. The Foundation is a major lender to the UCCA exhibition. The Foundation continues to facilitate exhibitions and events featuring her work around the world.
Themes of death appeared often in her final paintings, such as in Touching the Afterlife. She began her final self-portrait in 2010 and continued working on it until 2013. She would continue painting until January 2014, and drawing up until the very end. She died in her sleep on May 6, 2014. She was 94 years old.
In the years since her passing, Maria Lassnig’s global acclaim has only continued to rise. Lassnig had established a foundation in 2001 to manage her estate and legacy after her death. In 2015, the Maria Lassnig Foundation began operations, helmed by longtime collaborator and friend Peter Pakesch, formerly the director of the Kunsthalle Basel and Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz. The Foundation is a major lender to the UCCA exhibition. The Foundation continues to facilitate exhibitions and events featuring her work around the world.
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