Arnulf Rainer

Rainer studied from 1947 to 1949 at the state trade school in Villach. Afterwards he was a student at the Vienna University of Applied Arts and the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts for a short time. He realized his initial works in the style of Fantastic Realism or Abstract Realism, which he copied from Ernst Fuchs, Anton Lehmden and Erik Brauer and adopted for himself. In 1951 he met the two painters Jackson Pollock and Jean-Paul Riopelle in Paris, who briefly influenced him in his search for his own artistic expression. In the same year he began his typical over painting of his own and other people's works, and from 1953 onward with his "blind paintings". During this time he had experience with drugs and conducted studies in psychiatric clinics. In the second half of the 1950s he transferred these over paintings to photographs of his own body and face; some of them represented gesturally distorted portraits. The "face over paintings" were created. In his performance works from 1958 onward, he also painted over his own body. This artistic preoccupation with one's own body is linked to a search for identity and the exploration of one's own body language. This resulted in works with titles such as "Face Farces" and "Body Poses", which are reminiscent of works from Viennese Actionism. Numerous variations emerged from the over paintings, such as expressive finger painting or large series of crosses. Since 1977, death has received attention in Arnulf Rainer's motifs and became the central theme. Here too he worked with over painting death masks, mummies, corpse faces and depictions of crucifixions. In 1981 he accepted an appointment as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and became head of a master class for painting there. He carried out this teaching and research activity until 1995. His honors include the Austrian State Prize for Graphics, which he received in 1966. In 1978 he was honored with the Austrian State Prize for Painting. In 1981 the city of Frankfurt/M. with the Max Beckmann Prize. In the same year he was accepted into the Academy of Arts in Berlin. In 1972, 1977 and 1982 he presented his works at the "documenta" in Kassel. In 1978 and 1980 he took part in the Venice Biennale and represented Austria. And in 1993 a Rainer Museum was opened in New York. With his over paintings, Rainer intended to restore the pure state of the picture. He later interpreted his artistic work as a symbiosis between the old and new conditions. For example, the work "The Hare Outdoors" was created with this intention in mind. On the occasion of his seventieth birthday, the artist was honored with a retrospective at the Kunstforum Wien. Around 180 exhibits were shown in the retrospective. It included his surrealist-figurative early work, the monochrome black paintings, the over paintings in the 1950s, the self-portrayals "Face Farces" and "Body Poses" and other works up to his veil paintings from 1998. In 2001, the solo exhibition entitled "Overpaintings by Caspar David Friedrich" was held in the Berlin Dittmar Gallery. Arnulf Rainer created over painting as a separate art form and thereby gave European art new focuses. In 2003 Rainer received the Rhenus Art Prize as an award for his overall artistic work. The award was presented by the Mönchengladbach company Rhenus Lub as the donor. The prize is one of the largest European art prizes. Arnulf Rainer lives and works alternately in Vienna and at Vornbach Castle near Passau.