Tina Blau, Pioneer with Easel and Brush

The Austrian landscape painter was the first woman to work en plain air. Her landscapes are among the most impressive of the late 19th century.

Source of Inspiration and Open-Air Studio

The Vienna Prater

Even as a child, the Viennese painter Tina Blau showed considerable talent. She was born in 1845, into a liberal, intellectual family. Fortunately for her, her father, a jewish doctor, promoted her artistic ambitions. As a 15-year old, she worked with a private painting tutor, and a year later, she embarked on her first study tour to Transylvania.

With her creative, modern and unusual painting style, she soon became one of the best landscape painters of her time and soon outshone her male colleagues. This is remarkable not in the least because, as a woman, she was denied access to the large academies and renowned educational institutions. She had to take private lessons. Even so, she was soon able to sell many of her paintings. She sent them to the big European exhibitions in Paris, the Netherlands and Germany. Her painting „Frühling im Prater“ (The Prater in Spring) received recognition at the 1883 Paris Salon.

True Beauty - Travels to Exceptional Landscapes

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An Unconventional Life

Before Blau, there were very few successful female artists. Neither at the Künstlerhaus nor later, at the Secession, women were permitted to join as members. She did, however, share a studio with fellow artist, Emil Jakob Schindler. With him she also travelled to Holland for several months. This, too, was unusual for a single woman at the time. Despite her unparalleled style, international exhibitions and idiosyncratic compositions, her fame remained largely restricted to Austria. Blau always sought new motifs and diligently worked to avoid kitsch, which gave her paintings a timelessness that makes them still modern today. Her motifs range from the Vienna Prater to high-Alpine landscapes such as those of Schladming or St. Anton - areas she traveled to in person. In 1897 she co-founded an art school for girls and women in Vienna, which she taught at until one year before her death in 1915. At the same time as the early Impressionists created a new style in France, Blau developed her own independent painting style in a similar direction, which made her a forerunner of the Viennese Art Nouveau.

Austria's Varied Landscapes at the Museum

An Interview with Markus Fellinger

Markus Fellinger is curator of the Collection 19th and 20th Century at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, which features some of Tina Blau’s most important works.

austria.info: What makes Tina Blau one of Austria’s most important landscape painters?

Markus Fellinger: She single handedly developed the Austrian “Stimmungsimpressionismus” (atmospheric Impressionism). Her strong compositions, progressive choice in motifs and the small details that are characteristic for her paintings all suggest a comparison to the early French Impressionists.

austria.info: Which landscapes did Tina Blau travel to in person?

Markus Fellinger: She was fearless and travelled extensively throughout Germany, Holland, Italy and Austria. She even carted her gear into high-Alpine territory, for example to the Ötztal or to St. Anton, just so she could paint in nature.

austria.info: Where can you find her motifs today?

Markus Fellinger: You’ll come across her path when you travel through the Wachau Valley, Dürnstein or Weißenkirchen, as well as at the Vienna Prater, where she had her studio. It was housed in a Pavilion which remained from the 1873 World Exhibition and which is still used by artists today. Until Blau’s death, the Prater was central to her creative process and one of her central motifs - however, it has changed much since then. She also painted a lot in Vienna’s surroundings, for example in Grinzing, Heiligenstadt or Perchtoldsdorf. A hike through these landscapes is a great occasion for a stop at one of the local Heurigen where you can enjoy a glass of wine grown on the same hills.

Tina Blau: Stations of her Life

1845: Blau was born in Vienna. Her father, a military doctor, supported her ambition to become a painter.

1860: Private lessons with August Schaeffer, because women were denied a formal education.

1867: Select paintings exhibited at the Vienna Kunstverein.

1869 to 1873: Student of Wilhelm Lindenschmit in Munich.

Study tours to Bohemia, Hungary, Transylvania, Holland and Italy.

As of 1877, Studio at the Vienna Prater.

1883: Blau married the painter Heinrich Lang, with whom she mainly lived in Munich. Her painting “The Prater in Spring” is recognized with the only award for foreign artists, the „Mention honorable“, at the Paris Salon.

As of 1889, she taught landscape and still-life painting at the Academy for Women of the Kunstverein München.

1890: Exhibition at the Kunstverein München with 60 works.

1891: Death of her husband; extensive travels to Holland and Italy. Return to Vienna.

1897: Founding member of the Art School for Girls and Women in Vienna, which she taught at until 1915.

1916: Tina Blau’s honorary grave lies at the protestant cemetery in Simmering, Vienna.