About the Artist
Born in Carinthia in Southern Austria in 1919, Lassnig studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the midst of the Second World War, beginning in the winter semester 1940/1941 and graduating in 1945. In post-war Europe, she quickly moved away from the state-approved academic realism in which she had been trained, turning to Austria’s own avant-garde past and finding inspiration in the coloration of Oskar Kokoschka and the expressionist figuration of Egon Schiele. She continued to develop her painting practice, moving between Vienna and Paris, where she lived from 1961 to 1968. In 1968, Lassnig moved to New York, where she lived and worked in various studios, first in Queens, then in the East Village from 1969, and in SoHo from 1974 to 1978. In 1978, she received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and went for a year to Berlin. In 1979, Lassnig returned to New York, where she inhabited an apartment on First Avenue. Lassnig’s New York era brought significant artistic growth. She created pioneering work in film, producing a series of remarkably inventive animations, before she returned to Austria in 1980 at the age of 60.

In 1980, Lassnig was awarded a professorship – with a focus on painting – at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. From 1980 to 1989, Lassnig held the master class for ‘Gestaltungslehre – experimentelles Gestalten.’ Apart from painting, she also taught animated film.

In 1980, Lassnig co-represented Austria in the 39th Venice Biennale, and went on to participate in documenta 7 (1982) and documenta X (1997). Her 2014 solo exhibition at MoMA PS1, Long Island City NY, was the first major US show of the artist’s work. Lassnig’s work has been the subject of many well-attended international solo exhibitions, including surveys at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (1994); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France (1995); and the Serpentine Gallery, London, England (2008).

Hauser & Wirth first exhibited Lassnig’s work in London in 2004 and again in Zurich in 2007. In 2009, the gallery published ‘Maria Lassnig: The Pen is the Sister of the Brush,’ a selection from the artist’s diaries from 1943 to 1997.