Maria Lassnig

Galerie Raymond Bollag, Zurich
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 1993

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although they fail to fully convey the different green tonalities present in the centre and upper left quadrant of the composition. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There are a few minute and unobtrusive media accretions in isolated places to the right hand side of the composition. Very close inspection reveals some pinhead-sized punctures along the extreme right outer edge. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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“I have discovered that I want to paint what I feel”

(Maria Lassnig quoted in: Thomas Messgang, ‘Schmerzfarben, Kriegsangstfarben, Wärmefarben’, Zeit Online, 07 May 2014, online resource).

 

Painted in 1990, Maria Lassnig’s work Eingebettet Ausgesetzt (Embedded – Exposed) is dominated by vibrant and exuberant brushstrokes that emphasise the Austrian artist’s immediate and expressive habitus of painting. This painting presents itself as a visual amalgam of colour and composition, a balance between drastic one-dimensional figuration and surreal alienation. Referring to the title of the work, the near figurative elements that emerge from the composition are at once embedded within the greater abstract composition of the canvas as well as exposed by a painterly frame. Eingebettet Ausgesetzt is a rich and complex example of Lassnig’s oeuvre, provoking subtle associations, irritations and paradoxes that reinforce her position as an artist of unique merit.

 

Lassnig was later in life embedded within the artistic establishment but also constantly exposed to harsh critique, her art being deemed “degenerate” during the Second World War. She verbalised her relation to her own process of making art in her moving animation Cantata from 1992: “Life is not really over / I ski, motorbike up and down / And every day brings a new turn / It is art that doesn’t put me into the grave”.

 

A friend to André Breton and Paul Celan, Lassnig was early on associated with the French avant-garde in Paris during the 1950s. In 1968, she decided to go to New York and only returned to Austria at age 60 in 1980, where she stayed until her death in 2014. Lassnig only received acclaim later in life, with her participation at Documenta in 1982 and 1997, her representation of Austria during the Venice Biennale in 2013 for which she was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement, and her recent solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2014.