Born on 8 December 1929, Arnulf Rainer attended the National Political Educational Institution in Traiskirchen. However, because an art teacher forced him to draw according to nature, he left the school prematurely. In 1947, he saw contemporary art for the first time in an exhibition held by the British Council in Klagenfurt. At his parents; request, he studied at the State Trade School in Villach from 1947, which he completed in 1949. In the same year, he was admitted to the Academy of Applied Art in Vienna, which he left after only one day following an artistic controversy. Shortly afterwards, he applied to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, but fled again after only three days, since his works were described as being degenerate.

Together with Ernst Fuchs, Arik Brauer, Anton Lehmden, Wolfgang Hollegha, Markus Prachensky and Josef Mikl, he founded the Hundsgruppe group of artists in 1950, with which he exhibited for the first and only time in 1951. In 1953, he was introduced to the Catholic priest Otto Mauer in Vienna, who one year later founded the Galerie nächst St. Stephan, in which the Austrian avant-garde was given a high profile. In November 1955, Mauer opened Rainer’s first individual exhibition in the Galerie St. Stephan. From 1953 to 1959, the artist lived as a recluse in an unfurnished and abandoned house belonging to his parents in Bad Vöslau, where he began the group of works entitled Reductions, which are seen as a preliminary stage for his world-famous over-paintings. In 1967, he moved into a large studio in Vienna’s Mariahilfer Strasse; a year later, his first retrospective was held in the Vienna Museum of the 20th Century.
Over the decades, this award-winning painter has become one of the most famous artists in Austria, whose works have been presented in all renowned museums and galleries around the world; in Bad Vöslau, there is now a personalised Arnulf Rainer-Museum. The broad range of works of this “Reformer of Austrian painting” extends from surrealism and tachism through the informal and gesture to the typical crucifixion paintings and over-paintings. The title of the impressive work on the new commemorative is “Angst”, and dates from 1969/73 (oil on photo on wood, original size 119.5 x 87.5 cm).

Source: Austria Post

published September 19th, 2011