Maria Lassnig was born
the daughter of Mathilde
Gregorz in the little village
of Garzern near Kappel am
Krappfeld in Carinthia,
Austria on 8 September 1919.
It wasn’t until she
had already become an adult
that she first met her
actual father. Until the age
of six she was raised by her
grandmother – her mother’s job
meant that she had no time
to look after her.

After her mother married the
baker Jakob Lassnig, the
family moved to Klagenfurt in
1925. It was here that
Lassnig attended the Ursuline
convent school where she
took her Austrian
school leaving examination.
Her artistic skills
emerged during this time.

Maria Lassnig completed
a one-year primary school
teacher training course and
taught at elementary schools
in the Carinthian Metnitztal,
where she drew portraits of
schoolchildren. Lassnig would
regularly revisit her native
Province during her long
stays in France and the
United States; she even
set up a summer studio
in Carinthia in the 1980s.

Maria Lassnig was accepted
for a place at the Akademie
der bildenden Künste
(Academy of Fine Arts) in
Vienna during the winter
semester of 1940-41. She
initially studied painting
under Prof Wilhelm Dachauer
in his master class.

Due to artistic differences
with Prof Dachauer over
Lassnig’s idea of “vertical,
absolute colour vision”,
she was expelled from
his class in 1943.

Lassnig continued her studies
under Prof Ferdinand Andri
and under Prof Herbert Boeckl
in his evening nude
painting classes, which gave
her artistic inspiration.
Lassnig graduated from the
Academy in January 1945.

In 1945 Maria Lassnig returned to
Klagenfurt where her studio became
a meeting place of artists and
writers such as Michael Guttenbrunner,
Arnold Clementschitsch, Max Hölzer
and Arnold Wande.

She first met Arnulf Rainer
(ten years her junior) in
Carinthia in 1947. At this time,
influences of Kärntner Kolorismus
(or Carinthian colourism, as
represented by Arnold
Clementschitsch, Herbert Boeckl,
Anton Kolig and Franz Wiegele)
became noticeable in Lassnig’s
work. She was chiefly painting
expressive portraits, nude studies
and interiors as well as depictions
of still life and animals.

As Lassnig herself put it, her early years were
marked by experiences with various “isms”,
including artistic currents in surrealism and
of automatism from the late 1940s. Her first
“body awareness” drawings, which emerged in
1949, were referred to as introspective
experiences.

Solo exhibition

Galerie Kleinmayr, Malerei und Graphik,
Klagenfurt

Solo exhibition

Kosmos bookshop gallery, Vienna

After moving to Vienna in 1951, Lassnig became
a member of the so-called Hundsgruppe
(Dog Pack), a short-lived spin-off of the
Art Club which included Arik Brauer, Ernst Fuchs,
Wolfgang Kudrnofsky, Arnulf Rainer, and others. Having
received a scholarship, she travelled to
Paris in the same year (with Arnulf
Rainer). Paul Celan arranged for her to
meet representatives of Surrealism such as
André Breton, Benjamin Péret and Toyen. On her
second trip to Paris, the Véhemences Confrontées
exhibition at the Nina Dausset gallery with its
works of art informel and abstract expressionism
made a lasting impression on her. Back in Austria,
Lassnig and Rainer organised the Junge unfigurative
Malerei (Young Non-figurative Painting) exhibition
at the Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt.

Group exhibitions

Das allgemeine Jugendkulturwerk,
Die Hundsgruppe, Vienna
Kunstverein für Kärnten, Junge unfigurative
Malerei, Künstlerhaus, Klagenfurt

Influenced by art informel,
she created the series Amorphe
Rhythmen, Statische Meditationen,
Der aktive Ekel, Flächenteilungen
(Amorphous Rhythms, Static Meditations,
Active Disgust, Field Divisions) and
monotypes between 1951 and 1953.
In 1952, Lassnig returned to Paris
and exhibited at Vienna’s Art Club
gallery which was located in the
Strohkoffer café underneath the Loos bar.

Solo exhibition

Artclubgalerie, Strohkoffer, Vienna

She returned to the Vienna Academy in 1954 in
order to attend the master school of painting under
Albert Paris Gütersloh. Her explorations of
post-cubism were accompanied by her so-called
Kopfheiten (Headnesses) paintings in which she
assembled faces (as well as bodies) from colour
fields.

Lassnig maintained contacts with writers
from the circle of the Wiener Gruppe including H.
C. Artmann, Friedrich Achleitner, Gerhard Rühm,
Oswald Wiener, Friederike Mayröcker and Ernst
Jandl, and was involved in the Exil art club which
would meet at the Adebar jazz bar around 1954/55.

Solo exhibition

Zimmergalerie Franck, Ölbilder,
Frankfurt am Main

Group exhibition

Istituto d’Arte Paolo Toschi, Mostra dei giovani
artisti del Art-Club di Vienna, Parma

From 1956 she began to
develop closer contacts to
the art scene around
Monsignore Otto Mauer and
the Galerie nächst St. Stephan
(including Wolfgang Hollegha,
Josef Mikl, Markus Prachensky
and Arnulf Rainer).

Solo exhibition

Galerie Würthle, Vienna

A study tour led Lassnig to Italy and Greece
(Rome, Naples and Athens, etc.) in 1958. Towards
the end of the 1950s, she revisited art informel
and used watercolours or gouache to analyse body
sensations. This resulted in a sequence of
tachiste paintings which Lassnig went on to
develop still further after she moved to Paris
in 1961.

Group exhibition

Vienna Secession, aspekte
59. Festwochenausstellung, Vienna

Lassnig held four exhibitions at
the Galerie nächst St. Stephan
from 1960 to 1973.

Solo exhibition

Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna

Group exhibitions

Arts Council Gallery, Austrian Painting
and Sculpture. 1900 to 1960, London
galerie 59, Neue österreichische Kunst,
Aschaffenburg

With her move to Paris in 1961, Lassnig
released herself from stylistic constraints and
began painting large-scale “body awareness”
figurations (so-called Strichbilder, or Fine Line
Pictures) which pointed to the approach she would
adopt in her later work.

Solo exhibition

Landesmuseum Kärnten, Aquarelle, Klagenfurt
Galerie La Case d‘Art, Paris

Group exhibition

Internationale Malerei 1960-61, Deutsch-
Ordens-Schloss, Wolframs-Eschenbach/galerie 59,
Aschaffenburg

In the next few years, she developed narrative
paintings with one or more figures which borrowed
from technoid forms of science fiction. Body parts
blend with objects and become geometric figures,
sometimes set in absurdly caricatured scenes.
Monstrous, plastic self-portraits emerged alongside
this group of works.

Group exhibitions

Galerie Le Soleil dans la tête,
Jeune peinture autrichienne, Paris
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris,
Comparaisons. Peinture, sculpture, Paris
Galerie Creuze, Salle Balzac, Donner à voir 1
(selected by Jean-Jacques Lévêque), Paris

Group exhibition

Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville
de Paris, Les Surindépendants, Paris

The death of her mother in
1964 plunged Lassnig into an
existential crisis. She began
painting so-called Beweinungsbilder
(Weeping Pictures) that express
her grief and her intense – though
ambivalent – relationship with
her mother.

Solo exhibitions

Galerie Wulfengasse 14, Ölbilder,
Paris, Klagenfurt
Galerie nächst St. Stephan,
Ölbilder, Guachen, Paris, Vienna

Group exhibition

Galerij Magdalena Sothmann,
10 schilders en beeldhouwers
uit Oostenrijk, Amsterdam
(in collaboration with Galerie
nächst St. Stephan, Vienna)

In Paris, Lassnig became friends with
the poet Paul Celan and his wife, the
graphic artist Gisèle Celan-Lestrange,
in addition to the artist Hans
Bischoffshausen. Further companions
during the Paris years were the
Hildebrands, a married couple who
ran an avant-garde gallery in
Klagenfurt and lent their support
to Lassnig.

Solo exhibition

Galerie La Case d‘Art, Paris

Solo exhibition

Galerie Würthle, Sentimentale Bilder aus Paris,
Vienna

Group exhibitions

Institut Autrichien, Aquarelles et dessins
autrichiens des dernières années, Paris
Wiener Festwochen, Engagierte Kunst.
Gesellschaftskritische Grafik seit Goya,
Französischer Saal, Künstlerhaus, Vienna;
Kunsthaus der Stadt Graz, Graz; European
Forum, Alpbach; Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz, Linz

Solo exhibitions

Galerie Le Ranelagh, Paris
Galerie Heide Hildebrand, Klagenfurt

Group exhibitions

Musée d‘Art Moderne, Paris
Salon de Mai, Paris
Galerie nächst St. Stephan,
Graphik International, Vienna
Galerie Heide Hildebrand, Figures et histoires,
Klagenfurt

Group exhibitions

Salon de Mai, Paris/Havana
Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck

In 1968, Lassnig moved to New York where she
lived and worked in various studios, first in
Queens, then on Avenue B in the East Village from
1969, and on Spring Street in SoHo from 1974 to 1978.

Her paintings once again switched direction.
On the one hand, Lassnig turned to external realism
and painted portraits (including commissioned
works) and still lifes, but combined these with
self-portraits based on Körpergefühl. The notion
of Körpergefühl (literally “body sensation”) was
reworked into body awareness to meet American
language expectations.

Group exhibitions

Künstler ohne Kunst. Surrealisten
ohne Surrealismus.
Surrealismus ohne Surrealisten,
Galerie nächst St. Stephan,
Vienna; Galerie im
Taxispalais, Innsbruck
Intart, Ljubljana
Galerie Heide Hildebrand,
deux personnages. Maria
Lassnig und Gérard
Tisserand, Klagenfurt

In 1970, Lassnig attended an
animated film class at the School
of Visual Arts in New York. She
created several (animated) films
based on the template of body
awareness drawings, eight of which
were eventually released.

Solo exhibitions

Paintings, Graphics, Neue Galerie,
Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz;
Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna
Austrian Institute, Paintings, Graphics,
New York
Galerie Heide Hildebrand,
Siebdrucke, Klagenfurt

Group exhibition

Pratt Graphics Center, May 8, New York

Group exhibitions

Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts,
Anfänge des Informel in Österreich 1949–1953.
Vorläufer und Zeitgenossen. M. Lassnig
O. Oberhuber A. Rainer TRRR, Vienna
Galerie Heide Hildebrand, Salutationes,
Klagenfurt

Award

New York State Council Prize (for the animated film Selfportrait)

Solo exhibitions

Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Wie entsteht
ein Zeichentrickfilm, Vienna
Galerie im Taxispalais, Animation, Innsbruck

In 1974, Maria Lassnig was a co-founder of
the Women/Artist/Filmmakers, Inc. in New York;
this association included feminist film-makers
and artists such as Martha Edelheit, Carolee
Schneemann, Silvianna Goldsmith as well as
Rosalind Schneider. In addition to her
explorations of cinema, Lassnig also experimented
with the silkscreen technique and worked on a
painting complex of (self-)portraits featuring
depictions of animals in the mid-1970s.

Solo exhibition

Green Mountain Gallery, Paintings, New York

Solo exhibition

Galerie Ariadne, Zeichnungen 1948-1950, Vienna

Group exhibitions

Galerie nächst St. Stephan, MAGNA.
Feminismus: Kunst und Kreativität
(curated by VALIE EXPORT), Vienna
Kulturhaus der Stadt Graz, Anfänge des
Informel in Österreich 1949–1953.
Lassnig Oberhuber Rainer, Graz

Solo exhibitions

Gloria Cortella Gallery, New York
Galerie Wiener und Würthle, Berlin
Galerie Kalb, Vienna

Solo exhibitions

Zeichnungen, Albertina, Vienna; Kunstverein
für Kärnten, Klagenfurt
Galerie Ursula Krinzinger, Zeichnungen
1946-77, Innsbruck

Award

Award of the City of Vienna for Fine Art

In 1978, Maria Lassnig received a scholarship
from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
and went for a year to Berlin where she moved
into a studio in the Grunewald. She began creating
more and more landscape drawings and watercolours
as well as graphic body awareness and perception
studies. Her approach drew heavily on cognitive
science and was based on an intensive dialogue
with the writer Oswald Wiener, who was living in
Berlin at the time. Wiener had been exploring this
issue since the start of the 1970s.

Solo exhibition

Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin

Group exhibition

Vienna Secession, Secessionistinnen 1978,
Vienna

Award

Scholarship for the Berlin Artists'
Programme, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

In 1979, Lassnig returned to New York
where she inhabited an apartment on First
Avenue with views across the whole of New York.

Solo exhibition

Galerie Heike Curtze, Vienna/Düsseldorf

Group exhibition

3rd Biennale of Sydney, European Dialogue, Sydney

In 1980, at the instigation of Federal
Minister Hertha Firnberg and university
vice-chancellor Oswald Oberhuber, Lassnig
was awarded a professorship – with a focus on
painting – at the Hochschule für Angewandte
Kunst (University of Applied Arts) in Vienna.
From 1980 to 1989, Lassnig held the master
class for design and experimental theory. Apart
from painting, she also focused her teaching on
animated film and set up a teaching studio
headed by Hubert Sielecki in 1982.

Having only just returned to Austria,
Lassnig and VALIE EXPORT exhibited
at the Austrian pavilion on the occasion of the
Venice Biennale in 1980.

In the early 1980s, Lassnig’s self-portraits
repeatedly explored issues of overload and
enforced estrangement. On her holidays to the
Mediterranean and the Middle East she painted
watercolours of landscapes and with mythological
content – a reference which Lassnig increasingly
used throughout the 1980s. In the mid-1980s, the
Innerhalb und außerhalb der Leinwand (Inside and
Outside the Canvas) cycle reflected on the
“picture-in-picture” issue. Lassnig also began
dealing more extensively with nature, with “rural
life”.

Solo exhibition

Gallery in the Vienna State Opera, Vienna

Group exhibitions

La Biennale di Venezia, Arti Visive '80,
Austrian pavilion (with VALIE EXPORT),
Venice
Aspekte der Zeichnung in Österreich 1960
bis 1980, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen;
Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf;
Kunsthalle Tübingen, Tübingen;
Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg;
Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz, Linz

Solo exhibitions

Untersuchung zum Entstehen eines
Bewusstseinsbildes, Galerie Heike
Curtze, Vienna; Kulturhaus der Stadt
Graz, Graz
Galerie Klewan, Bilder und Zeichnungen,
Munich

Group exhibitions

Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts,
Der Art Club in Österreich. Zeugen
und Zeugnisse eines Aufbruchs, Vienna
Typisch Frau, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn;
Galerie Magers, Bonn; Städtische
Galerie Regensburg, Regensburg

Apart from painting, Lassnig
also focused her teaching on animated
film and set up a teaching studio
headed by Hubert Sielecki in 1982.

The artist took part in documenta 7,
Kassel, in 1982.

Solo exhibitions

1982-84
Zeichnungen, Aquarelle, Gouachen,
1949-1982, Mannheimer Kunstverein,
Mannheim; Kunstverein Hannover,
Hanover; Kunstverein München,
Munich; Museum Kunstpalast,
Düsseldorf; Galerie Haus am Waldsee,
Berlin; Neue Galerie am
Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz

Group exhibitions

documenta 7, Kassel
Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Körper-
zeichen: Österreich, Winterthur
Austrian Museum of
Applied Arts, Einblicke.
Die Professoren der Hochschule für
Angewandte Kunst in Wien, Vienna
Spiegelbilder, Kunstverein Hannover,
Hanover; Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-
Museum, Duisburg; Haus am Waldsee,
Berlin

Group exhibitions

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Österreichische
Zeichnungen des 20. Jahrhunderts, Salzburg
Galerie Heike Curtze, Kleinformatige neue
Arbeiten, Vienna
Galerie Klewan, Zwölf Österreicher, Munich

Group exhibitions

Galerie Hummel, Auflösungen.
Vorinformel und Informel in Wien, Vienna
Kasseler Kunstverein, Aquarelle, Kassel
Galerie Elisabeth Kaufmann, Aquarelle, Zurich
Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Arte austriaca
1960-1984, Bologna
Galerie Krinzinger/Forum für aktuelle Kunst,
Symbol Tier, Innsbruck
Galerie Heike Curtze, 1960-1980, Vienna

The first major retrospective
exhibition of Maria Lassnig’s
paintings opened at the Museum
moderner Kunst (Museum of Modern
Art) in Vienna in 1985.

Solo exhibitions

Museum moderner Kunst/Museum
des 20. Jahrhunderts, Vienna;
Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf;
Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg;
Kärntner Landesgalerie, Klagenfurt
(retrospective)

Group exhibitions

Musée cantonal des Beaux Arts,
Selbstporträts, Lausanne
Le Avanguardie in Austria. Pittura del
dopoguerra da Kokoschka a Schmalix,
Milan, Ferrara, Rome, Bolzano, Genoa
Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Kunst
mit Eigen-Sinn, Vienna

Award

Carinthian Regional Prize

Solo exhibitions

Studio d’Arte Cannaviello, Milan
Galerie Freiberger, Walter-
Buchebner-Gesellschaft,
Zeichnungen, Aquarelle, Gouachen,
Mürzzuschlag

Group exhibitions

Vom Zeichnen. Aspekte der
Zeichnung 1960-1985, Frankfurter
Kunstverein, Frankfurt; Kasseler
Kunstverein, Kassel; Museum
Modernder Kunst, Vienna
Vienna Secession, Zeichen und
Gesten. Informelle Tendenzen in
Österreich, Vienna
Galerie Klewan, Maria Lassnig und
Arnulf Rainer. Selbstdarstellungen,
Munich
Galerie Krinzinger, Aug um Aug,
Vienna

Solo exhibitions

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Zeichnungen
und Aquarelle 1957-1962, Zeichnungen 1986/87,
Salzburg
Edition Hundertmark, Cologne
Galerie Reinhard Onnasch, Innerhalb
und außerhalb der Leinwand, Berlin

Group exhibitions

Vienna Secession, Im Rahmen der Zeichnung,
im Lauf der Zeichnung, Vienna
Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst/Akademie
der Bildenden Künste, Das verborgene Museum,
Berlin
Zeichnungen der österreichischen Avantgarde,
Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck; Palais Thurn
und Taxis, Bregenz; Bündner Kunsthaus, Chur;
Galerie Stampa, Basel; Städtische Kunst-
sammlungen, Ludwigshafen; Museum Schloss
Morsbroich, Leverkusen; Neue Galerie am Lan-
desmuseum Joanneum, Graz; Austrian Cultural
Forum, New York; Sammlung Kermer,
Stuttgart

In 1988 she was awarded the Großer
Österreichischer Staatspreis (Grand
Austrian State Prize) – marking the
first time this distinction had been
conferred on a woman in the field of
fine arts.

Solo exhibitions

Galerie Ulysses, Vienna
Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich
Aquarelle, Kärntner Landesgalerie, Klagenfurt;
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna;
Salzburger Landessammlungen Rupertinum,
Salzburg

Group exhibitions

Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum,
Alpen-Adria. Jenseits des Realismus. Figuration –
Abstraktion – Informel 1945-60, Graz
Expressiv. Mitteleuropäische Kunst seit 1960,
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
Washington, D.C.; Museum Moderner Kunst/
Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Vienna
7^th Biennale of Sydney, From the Southern
Cross. A View of World Art c1940–1988, Sydney

Award

Grand Austrian State Prize (Fine Art)

Solo exhibitions

Bilder der sechziger Jahre, Galerie Klewan,
Munich
Galerie Ulysses, New York
Mit dem Kopf durch die Wand. Neue Bilder,
Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne; Neue Galerie am
Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz; Kunstverein
in Hamburg, Hamburg; Vienna Secession, Vienna

Group exhibitions

Balkon mit Fächer. 25 Jahre Berliner Künstlerprogramm
des DAAD,
Akademie der Künste, Berlin; DuMont Kunsthalle,
Cologne; Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag
Mücsarnok, Land in Sicht. Österreichische Kunst
im 20. Jahrhundert, Budapest

With her colour figurations Be-Ziehungen
(a play on words referring both to
relationships and drawings) and Malflüsse
(another pun, here literally rendered as
Paint Flows) in the early 1990s, Lassnig
referenced her Strichbilder of thirty years
earlier.

Solo exhibitions

Liljevalchs Konsthall, Wien 1900 – Wien 1990,
Stockholm
Haus am Waldsee, Animalia: Stellvertreter.
Tierbilder in der zeitgenössischen Kunst, Berlin
Museum Wiesbaden, Künstlerinnen des
20. Jahrhunderts, Wiesbaden

In collaboration with Hubert Sielecki, the film
Maria Lassnig Kantate (The Ballad of Maria Lassnig)
was released in 1992.

Solo exhibitions

Galerie Klewan, Bilder, Zeichnungen, Aquarelle,
Grafik 1946-1986, Munich
Galerie Ulysses, Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, Vienna

Group exhibitions

Malerei der Widerstände. Wiener Positionen
1945-55, Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt;
Kunstverein Horn, Horn; Museum Moderner
Kunst, Passau; Jesuitenkirche, Aschaffenburg
Menschenbilder. Die Sammlung Murken, Galerie
der Stadt Sindelfingen im Alten Rathaus
Maichingen, Sindelfingen; Städtische Galerie
Meerbusch, Meerbusch; Kunstmuseum Bonn,
Bonn

Group exhibitions

The Broken Mirror.
Positions of Painting Today,
Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna;
Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg
1993/94
Romantik in der Kunst der
Gegenwart. Die Sammlung Murken,
Zeppelin Museum, Friedrichshafen;
Landesmuseum Mainz, Mainz;
Kunstmuseum Thun, Thun; Jesuiten-
kirche, Aschaffenburg; Kunsthalle
Dominikanerkirche, Osnabrück;
Erholungshaus/Kulturhaus der
Bayer AG, Leverkusen; Ludwig
Forum für Internationale Kunst,
Aachen; Kunstamt Kreuzberg, Berlin;
Zeppelin Museum, Friedrichshafen

Solo exhibitions

Das Innere nach Außen, Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam; St. Petri, Lübeck; Frankfurter
Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main; Galerie
Ulysses, Vienna

Group exhibitions

Galerie Krinzinger, Körpernah, Vienna
Helmhaus Zürich, Hauttief, Zurich
Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung
Ludwig Wien, Exhibition, Vienna
Kunsthallen Brandts Klaedefabrik,
Dialogue with the Other, Odense
Historical Museum of the City of Vienna,
Bilder vom Tod, Vienna

In 1995, the artist once again participated in
the Venice Biennale and in Kassel’s documenta X
two years later.

Solo exhibitions

Kärntner Landesgalerie, Klagenfurt
Zeichnungen und Aquarelle 1946-1995 /
Dessins et aquarelles 1946-1995,
Kunstmuseum Bern, Berne; Musée national d’art
moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris;
Städtisches Museum Leverkusen, Leverkusen;
Kunstmuseum Ulm, Ulm; Kulturhaus Graz, Graz

Group exhibitions

La Biennale di Venezia, Identità e alternità. Figure
del corpo 1895-1995, Venice
4^th Istanbul Biennale, Orient-ation. The Vision of Art
in a Paradoxical World, Istanbul
Centre Georges Pompidou, Féminin-Masculin.
Le sexe de l‘art, Paris

Group exhibitions

Malerei in Österreich 1945-1995.
Die Sammlung Essl, Mücsarnok Kunsthalle,
Budapest; Künstlerhaus Wien, Vienna
Kunsthalle Bonn, Kunst aus Österreich
1896-1996, Bonn

In 1997, Lassnig formally retired
from her teaching duties at the
Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in
Vienna; de facto, she had stopped
exercising this profession in 1989.
In 1998, she was awarded the Oskar
Kokoschka Prize.

Solo exhibitions

Neue Bilder und Zeichnungen,
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin;
DAAD-Galerie Berlin, Berlin;
Kunsthalle Bern, Berne; Kunsthalle
Mücsarnok, Budapest

Group exhibitions

documenta X, Kassel
Sammlung Essl, Utopie und
Weltschmerz. Arbeiten auf
Papier, Klosterneuburg
Anfänge des Informel in
Österreich 1949-1954
Maria Lassnig, Oswald
Oberhuber, Arnulf Rainer,
Salzburger Landessammlungen
Rupertinum, Salzburg;
Kulturhaus der Stadt Graz, Graz

As of the late 1990s, Lassnig increasingly
focused her attention on creating so-called
Drastische Bilder (Drastic Pictures) in which
she explored major existential themes such as the
difficult relationship between men and women,
unchosen lifestyles – Illusionen (Illusions), as
well as impermanence, death and destruction. Her
numerous self-portraits with animals also refer
to the combination of the human and the animalistic.
Moreover, Lassnig worked on the extensive graphic
cycle of Landleute (Country People) as of 1996. With
her so-called Fußballbilder (Football Pictures),
Lassnig took an ironic swipe at a domain of sport
dominated by men.

In 2002, Lassnig was awarded the Roswitha
Haftmann Prize, a distinction followed by the
Rubens Prize of the City of Siegen, which marked
the first time that this award had been conferred
on a woman artist. In 2004, Lassnig was
recognised by the city of Frankfurt with the
Max Beckmann Prize for her “exceptional
contribution to contemporary painting”. In 2005,
Lassnig received the Austrian Decoration for
Science and Art, the highest award bestowed by
the Republic of Austria for scientific or
artistic achievements.

Group exhibitions

Kunsthalle Wien, Alpenblick, Vienna
Ottawa Art Gallery, Close Encounters, Ottawa
Sammlung Essl, art.ist.innen. Künstlerinnen
in der Sammlung Essl, Klosterneuburg

Award

Oskar Kokoschka Prize

Solo exhibitions

Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien,
Vienna; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes / Fonds
Régional d’Art Contemporain des Pays de la
Loire, Nantes

Group exhibitions

Bank Austria Kunstforum, Das Jahrhundert
der Frauen, Vienna
Der anagrammatische Körper. Der Körper und
seine fotografische Konstruktion, Kunsthaus Mürz,
Mürzzuschlag (in collaboration with Neue
Galerie Graz, steirischer herbst); ZKM – Zentrum
für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe
Aspekte/Positionen. 50 Jahre Kunst aus
Mitteleuropa 1949-1999, Museum Moderner Kunst
Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna; Ludwig Museum,
Budapest; Fundació Miró, Barcelona; Hansard
Gallery/City Gallery, Southampton;
National Gallery, Prague

Group exhibitions

Die verletzte Diva. Hysterie, Körper, Technik in der
Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, Lenbachhaus /
Kunstverein München / Rotunde Siemens Kultur-
programm, Munich; Staatliche Kunsthalle,
Baden-Baden; Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
Aargauer Kunsthaus, Das Gedächtnis der Malerei,
Aarau
Rupertinum, Das Bild des Körpers, Salzburg
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Ich ist
etwas anderes, Düsseldorf
Malmö Konsthall, Shoot. Moving Pictures
by Artists, Malmö

Solo exhibition

Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover,
Bilder 1989-2001, Hanover

Group exhibitions

steirischer herbst, Abbild, Landesmuseum
Joanneum, Graz
Museum Ludwig, Museum of Our
Wishes, Cologne
Shanghai Art Museum, Austrian Contemporary
Art, Architecture and Design, Shanghai
Kunsthalle Erfurt, Die österreichische
Moderne nach 1945 in der Sammlung
Essl – Malerei, Grafik, Zeichnung, Erfurt
Essl Museum, Reisen ins Ich. Künstler/Selbst/
Bild, Klosterneuburg

Solo exhibitions

Galerie Ulysses, Eine andere Dimension, Vienna
Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen,
Körperporträts, Siegen
Petzel Gallery, New York
Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste,
Munich

Group exhibitions

Reflexionen, Österreichische Avantgarde nach
1945 – Sammlung Otto Mauer, Parliament, Vienna;
Museum Moderner Kunst – Stiftung Wörlen,
Passau; The Brno House of Arts, Brno;
New Town Hall, Prague; Tel Aviv

Awards

Roswitha Haftmann Prize
Rubens Prize of the City of Siegen
Ring of Honour awarded by the Universität
für angewandte Kunst (University of Applied
Arts), Vienna
NORD/LB award for art

Solo exhibition

Kunsthaus Zürich, Verschiedene
Arten zu sein, Zurich

Group exhibitions

La Biennale di Venezia, Sogni e Conflitti.
La dittatura dello spettatore, Venice
Haus der Kunst, Grotesk! 130 Years
of Witty Art, Munich
Martin-Gropius-Bau, Warum! Bilder
diesseits und jenseits des Menschen,
Berlin
Fondation Beyeler, EXPRESSIV!, Basel
Neue Galerie Graz, Landesmuseum
Joanneum, Support. Die Neue Galerie
als Sammlung, Graz
Museo Correr, Pittura 1964–2003.
Da Rauschenberg a Murakami, Venice

Solo exhibitions

Hauser & Wirth London, London
Städel Museum, Verschiedene Arten zu sein,
Frankfurt am Main
Landleute, Ritter Galerie, Klagenfurt; Schloss
Straßburg, Straßburg, Kärnten

Group exhibitions

Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung
Ludwig Wien, Porträts. Picasso, Bacon, Warhol...,
Vienna
Des Moines Art Center, Contested Fields.
Identity in Sports and Spectacle, Des Moines
SITE Santa Fe Biennial, Disparities and
Deformations. Our Grotesque, Santa Fe
Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten, Eremiten –
Kosmopoliten. Moderne Malerei in Kärnten 1900-
1955, Klagenfurt

Awards

Max Beckmann Prize

From 2005 to 2007, the so-called Nachtbilder or Kellerbilder
(Night or Basement Pictures) marked the emergence of a new
complex of paintings which Lassnig presented at an exhibition
held in London’s Serpentine Gallery in 2008. In these later
years, Lassnig managed to achieve international renown – not
least through the support of international galleries – and
was increasingly represented in museums.

Solo exhibitions

Petzel Gallery, New York
Essl Museum, body. fiction. nature,
Klosterneuburg
museum in progress/Vienna State Opera,
Iron Curtain, Vienna

Group exhibitions

Österreichische Galerie Belvedere,
Das neue Österreich, Vienna
Martin-Gropius-Bau, Rundlederwelten, Berlin
Villa Manin, The Theatre of Art, Codroipo
Museum am Ostwall, Munch revisited.
Edvard Munch und die heutige Kunst, Dortmund
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhovenistanbul, Eindhoven
Stedelijk Museum, Bock mit Inhalt.
Summer Exhibition 2005, Amsterdam
Zeitgenössische österreichische Kunst und Malerei
der Nachkriegszeit. Sammlung Essl, Museo de Arte
Moderno, Mexico City; MARCO – Museo de Arte
Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Monterrey

Awards

Austrian Decoration for
Science and Art

Solo exhibitions

Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen,
Painting Body and Soul, Siegen
White 8 Galerie, Woman Power, Villach
Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten, Körperbilder.
Body awareness painting, Klagenfurt

Group exhibitions

MoMA – Museum of Modern Art,
Eye on Europe, New York
Kunsthaus Graz, Landesmuseum Joanneum,
Two or Three or Something. Maria Lassnig,
Liz Larner, Graz
INTO ME / OUT OF ME, P.S.1 Contemporary
Art Center, Long Island City; KW Institute for
Contemporary Art, Berlin; MACRO, Rome
Galerie Cora Hölzl, Quel Corps?, Düsseldorf
Essl Museum, Austria 1900-2000.
Confrontations and Continuities,
Klosterneuburg

Solo exhibition

Hauser & Wirth Zürich, Zurich

Group exhibitions

Kunsthal Rotterdam, Painting now!
Back to figuration, Rotterdam
Kunsthalle Bern, Critical Mass – Kritische Masse.
20 Jahre Stiftung Kunsthalle Bern, Berne
Albertina, Art after 1970. Aus der Albertina,
Vienna
2007-09
Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution,
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles;
National Museum of Women in the Arts,
Washington; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long
Island City; Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver

Solo exhibitions

Serpentine Gallery, London
Contemporary Arts Center,
Cincinnati, OH

Group exhibitions

Carnegie Museum of Art,
Life on Mars. 55th Carnegie
International, Pittsburgh
Museum moderner Kunst
Stiftung Ludwig Wien,
Mind Expanders. Performative
Bodies, Utopian Architectures around
'68, Vienna
Museum Moderner Kunst Kärn-
ten, K08. Emanzipation und
Konfrontation, Kunst aus
Kärnten von 1945 bis heute, Klagenfurt
Essl Museum, Baselitz to
Lassnig. Masterpieces, Klosterneuburg
CAM – Centro de Arte
Moderna – Fundação
Calouste Gulbenkian,
Drawing A Tension. Obras da
Colecção Deutsche Bank,
Lisbon
Museum Kunstpalast,
Diana und Actaeon.
The Forbidden Glimpse of
the Naked Body, Düsseldorf

In 2009, the mumok in Vienna
dedicated a solo exhibition to her,
emphasising the paintings she had
created after 2000, while Cologne’s
Ludwig Museum honoured Lassnig with a
graphics show. In 2010, Lassnig’s
current work was exhibited at the
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus,
Munich.

Solo exhibitions

mumok, Museum Moderner Kunst
Stiftung Ludwig Wien, The Ninth
Decade, Vienna
Museum Ludwig, In the Mirror of
Possibilities. Watercolours and Drawings
from 1947 to the Present, Cologne

Group exhibitions

Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz,
Best of Austria. An Art Collection,
Linz
Kunsthalle Bielefeld, 1968.
The Great Innocence, Bielefeld
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung,
Pinakothek der Moderne,
The Presence of the Line. A Selection of New Acquisitions from the 20th and 21st Centuries, Munich

Solo exhibitions

Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau
München, It's art that keeps one even
younger, Munich
Petzel Gallery, New York

Group exhibitions

Kunsthaus Graz, Universalmuseum Joanneum,
Human Condition. Empathy and
Emancipation in Precarious Times, Graz
Städel Museum, In Chronological Order.
Städel Works of the 14th to 21st Centuries,
Frankfurt am Main
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Jeder Künstler ist
ein Mensch. Positionen des Selbstportraits,
Baden-Baden
8^th Gwangju Biennale, 10,000 Lives,
Gwangju
SITE Santa Fe Biennial, The Dissolve, Santa Fe
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
The Esprit of Gestures. Hans Hartung, Informel
and its Impact, Berlin

Award

Honorary membership of the Akademie der Bildenden
Künste (Academy of Fine Arts), Vienna

Solo exhibition

Petzel Gallery, Films, New York

Group exhibitions

White Columns, Looking Back/The 6th White
Columns Annual, New York
Austrian Cultural Forum, Beauty Contest,
New York

In 2012, the Neue Galerie Graz /
Universalmuseum Joanneum devised a
retrospective solo exhibition which
incorporated some of the artist’s works
that had never been shown before. This
complex of works and other pieces was
put on display in the Deichtorhallen
Hamburg (in 2013), and the MoMA PS1 in
New York (in 2014).

Solo exhibitions

Neue Galerie Graz, Universalmuseum
Joanneum, The Location of Pictures, Graz
SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art,
Technical Temptations. The Films
of Maria Lassnig, Montreal

Group exhibitions

Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz,
The Naked Man, Linz
Critique and Crisis.
Art in Europe since 1945,
Deutsches Historisches Museum,
Berlin; Palazzo Reale, Milan
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art,
Self-Portrait, Humlebaek
Kunstmuseum St. Gallen/Lokremise,
Human Capsules. Eight Female Artists
from the Ursula Hauser Collection, St. Gallen
Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden,
Bilderbedarf. The Civic and the Arts,
Baden-Baden
Kunsthalle Vogelmann,
Städtische Museen Heilbronn, Merciless.
Female Artists and the Comical, Heilbronn

In 2013, the enormous resonance of
Lassnig’s late work culminated in her
receiving the Golden Lion for Lifetime
Achievement at the Venice Biennale.

Solo exhibitions

Deichtorhallen/Halle für aktuelle Kunst,
The Location of Pictures, Hamburg
Capitain Petzel, Berlin
Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle

Group exhibitions

La Biennale di Venezia, Il Palazzo Enciclopedico,
Venice
Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Sie. Selbst.
Nackt. Paula Modersohn-Becker und andere
Künstlerinnen im Selbstakt, Bremen

Award

Golden Lion award for Lifetime Achievement,
La Biennale di Venezia

Maria Lassnig died at the age of 94
in Vienna on 6 May 2014.

Solo exhibition

MoMA PS1, Long Island City

Group exhibitions

State Hermitage Museum, Manifesta 10, St. Petersburg
The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University,
Rose Video 03. Maria Lassnig and Mary Reid
Kelley, Waltham, MA
Essl Museum, made in austria, Klosterneuburg

Solo exhibitions

Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona
LLS 387 Ruimte voor actuele Kunst,
Filmmaker, Antwerp
Hilfiker Kunstprojekte, Lucerne

Group exhibitions

Picasso in Contemporary Art,
Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Wexner Center
for the Arts, Columbus
Neue Galerie Graz, Universalmuseum Joanneum,
The Marked Self. Between Annihilation and
Masquerade, Graz
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Avatar und Atavismus.
Outside der Avantgarde, Düsseldorf
Villa Merkel,
Galerien der Stadt Esslingen am Neckar,
Better than de Kooning, Esslingen am Neckar
Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, La Grande Madre,
Palazzo Reale, Milan
CAM – Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis,
Occupational Therapy, St. Louis
Barbara Gross Galerie, Louise Bourgeois /
Maria Lassnig / Nancy Spero. Another Normal
Love, Munich
The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University,
Rose Projects 1C: Painting Blind, Waltham, MA
Kunstraum Lakeside, So wilde Freiheit
war noch nie. Für Christine Lavant, Klagenfurt
2015-16
Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Empathy and Abstraction.
Modernist Women in Germany, Bielefeld
Painting 2.0. Expression in the Information Age,
Museum Brandhorst, Munich; Museum
moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna

Solo exhibitions

Tate Liverpool, Liverpool
Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, Los Angeles
Petzel Gallery, New York
Galerie Ulysses, Vienna
Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg

Group exhibitions

Haus der Kunst, Postwar.
Art between the Pacific and
Atlantic, 1945–1965, Munich

Solo exhibitions

Albertina, Vienna
Museum Folkwang, Essen
Zachęta – National Gallery, Warsaw
National Gallery, Prague

Solo exhibition

Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel