Newsletter
Register to get the latest information and travel deals.
Additional Portals
Lassnig, Maria (born 1919)
Copyright: IMAGNO/Otto Breicha
After several stays in Paris in the 1950ies, Lassnig returned to Vienna where she greatly influenced the burgeoning informal art scene in Austria.
In this period Lassnig’s paintings were dominated by novel signs, and the spontaneous rhythm of lines and color grounds. These elements were supposed to capture the spiritual impulses of the artist. From there it was only a short step to her “body awareness paintings” which then governed her works. These pictures are not traditional self-portraits; instead they express the artist's inner awareness.
Lassnig paints in oil and watercolor, creates movies, and in the 1970ies also tried her hand at sculpturing. Besides her central theme of body awareness, the artist also focuses on the amalgamation of human bodies with lifeless objects such as automats, robots, machines, or animals.
After a 12-year residency in New York, she returned to Vienna in 1980 to teach at the Academy of Applied Arts and the College for Applied Arts.
Numerous retrospectives have been devoted to Maria Lassnig's paintings and drawings, among them the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1994, Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf in 1985, the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 1995, and the Museum of Modern Art, Ludwig Foundation, Vienna in 1999.
Maria Lassnig is honorary member of the Vienna Secession and since 2005 bearer of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art.
Maria Lassnig at "basis wien"
In this period Lassnig’s paintings were dominated by novel signs, and the spontaneous rhythm of lines and color grounds. These elements were supposed to capture the spiritual impulses of the artist. From there it was only a short step to her “body awareness paintings” which then governed her works. These pictures are not traditional self-portraits; instead they express the artist's inner awareness.
Lassnig paints in oil and watercolor, creates movies, and in the 1970ies also tried her hand at sculpturing. Besides her central theme of body awareness, the artist also focuses on the amalgamation of human bodies with lifeless objects such as automats, robots, machines, or animals.
After a 12-year residency in New York, she returned to Vienna in 1980 to teach at the Academy of Applied Arts and the College for Applied Arts.
Numerous retrospectives have been devoted to Maria Lassnig's paintings and drawings, among them the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1994, Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf in 1985, the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 1995, and the Museum of Modern Art, Ludwig Foundation, Vienna in 1999.
Maria Lassnig is honorary member of the Vienna Secession and since 2005 bearer of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art.
Maria Lassnig at "basis wien"
Accommodations