Maria Lassnig | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1919-09-08)8 September 1919 Kappel am Krappfeld,Carinthia, Austria |
| Died | 6 May 2014(2014-05-06) (aged 94) |
| Nationality | Austrian |
| Known for | Painting |
| Awards | Grand Austrian State Prize (1988), Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award (2013) |
| Website | marialassnig |
Maria Lassnig (8 September 1919 – 6 May 2014) was an Austrian artist known for her painted self-portraits and her theory of "body awareness".[1] She was the first female artist to win theGrand Austrian State Prize in 1988 and was awarded theAustrian Decoration for Science and Art in 2005.[2][3] Lassnig lived and taught in Vienna from 1980 until her death.[4]
Maria Lassnig was born inKappel am Krappfeld, Austria, on 8 September 1919.[5][6] Her mother gave birth to her out of wedlock and later married a much older man, but their relationship was troubled and Lassnig was raised mostly by her grandmother.[7] She attended theAcademy of Fine Arts Vienna during World War II.[8]
Lassnig is credited with helping to introduceInformalism andTachisme into postwar Austrian art.[9] In the 1950s, Lassnig was part of theHundsgruppe ("Dog Pack") group, which also includedArnulf Rainer,Ernst Fuchs,Anton Lehmden,Arik Brauer andWolfgang Hollegha.[10] The works of the group were influenced byabstract expressionism andaction painting.[11] In 1951 Lassnig traveled to Paris withArnulf Rainer where they organized the exhibitionJunge unifigurative Malerei at the Kärnten Art Association.[12] In Paris she also met the surrealist artistAndré Breton and the poetsPaul Celan andBenjamin Péret.[7][13]
Though Lassnig began her career painting abstract works, she always created self-portraits. One of her earliest wasExpressive Self-Portrait (1945), which she painted only weeks after leaving Vienna.[14] In 1948 Lassnig coined the term "body consciousness" (Körpergefühlmalerei in her native German) to describe her practice.[6] In this style, Lassnig only depicted the parts of her body that she actually felt as she worked.[13] As such, many of her self-portraits depict figures that are missing body parts or use unnatural colours. The shading of the grotesque forms then become a code for interpreting her "Körpergefühlmalerei."[15] For example, red often acts as the most significant color in her paintings, sometimes suggesting pain but often just intense feeling or strain.[16] By the 1960s Lassnig turned away from abstract painting altogether and began to focus more wholly on the human body and psyche.[17] Since that time she created hundreds of self-portraits.[14] Most of her work in the 1970s and 1980s paired her own image with objects, animals or other people, frequently with a blocked out or averted gaze, suggesting interiority.[18]
From 1968 to 1980, Lassnig lived in New York City.[19] From 1970 to 1972 she studied animated film at theSchool of Visual Arts in New York City.[citation needed] During this time she made six short films, includingSelfportrait (1971) andCouples (1972).[20] Her most famous film, however,Kantate (also known asThe Ballad of Maria Lassnig), was produced in 1992 when she was seventy-three years old.[21] Kantate (1992) depicts a filmic self-portrait of the artist set to songs and music.[21]
In 1980, she returned to become a professor at the Vienna University of Applied Arts, becoming the first female professor of painting in a German-speaking country.[22] She was a chair at the University until 1997.[20] In 1997 she also published a book of her drawings entitledDie Feder ist die Schwester des Pinsels (orThe Pen is the Sister of the Paintbrush).[citation needed] She continued to paint, and in 2008 made her provocative self-portrait,You or Me, which exemplifies the often confrontational nature of her works.[23]
In 2013 Lassnig received the Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement at the 55th Venice Biennale.[24]
Well into her sixties and late in her career, Lassnig began to receive widespread recognition, especially in Europe.[7] She represented Austria at theVenice Biennale withValie Export in 1980.[2] In 1996 a retrospective of her work was held at theCentre Georges Pompidou.[1] She participated indocumenta in both 1982 and 1997.[citation needed] For the 2005/2006 season at theVienna State Opera she designed the large-scale (176 m²)Breakfast with Ear for the ongoing series "Safety curtain", conceived bymuseum in progress. In 2008 an exhibition of her recent paintings was shown at theSerpentine Gallery[25][26] which also travelled to theContemporary Arts Center in the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (2009). The exhibition was curated byJulia Peyton-Jones andHans Ulrich Obrist in association withRebecca Morrill and featured thirty canvases and seven films.
Lassnig's later solo exhibitions includedIt's art that keeps one ever young, Städtische Galerie imLenbachhaus, Munich, Germany (2010), 'Maria Lassnig. Films’, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York NY, (2011), and The Location of Pictures,Universalmuseum Joanneum; Graz (2012).[27] as well asDeichtorhallen; Hamburg (2013).[28]
MoMA PS1 held a major exhibition in 2014 of works, many of which that had not previously been seen in the United States before including 50 paintings, filmic works and a selection of watercolors.[29] They have continued to show her films, as in the 2018 exhibitionMaria Lassnig: New York Films 1970-1980.[30]
Since 2014, the year of her death, her work was shown at the Fondacio Tapies in Barcelona (2015), Tate Liverpool (2016), the Albertina, Vienna (2017),[31] and the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2017),[32] the National Gallery in Prague (2018),[33] Kunstmuseum Basel (2018),[34] and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2019).[35] Lassnig's work was included in the 2022 exhibitionWomen Painting Women at theModern Art Museum of Fort Worth.[36]
Lassnig's work is held in the following permanent collections:
Critics have pointed to the influence that Lassnig's work had on contemporary artists likeNicole Eisenman,Dana Schutz,Thomas Schütte, andAmy Sillman.[6][7]
Founded in 2015, theMaria Lassnig Foundation is dedicated to propagating the extensive oeuvre of the artist and to ensure that Lassnig's legacy is secured over the long term.[39]
A biopic on her life was made byAnja Salomonowitz in 2024. Titled asSleeping with a Tiger, the film will have world premiere in February 2024, as part of the74th Berlin International Film Festival, in Forum.[44][45]
Media related toMaria Lassnig at Wikimedia Commons
