untitled, 2017

Painting in oil on canvas, framed with studio moulding, unique specimen

Dimensions: 273 x 223 x 7 cm

Wolfgang Hollegha is considered one of the most important abstract painters in Austria. From 1947 to 1954 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under Josef Dobrowsky and Herbert Boeckl. In 1956 he founded the "St. Stephan Painters' Group" with Josef Mikl, Markus Prachensky and Arnulf Rainer. In 1964 he participated in Documenta 3 in Kassel. Since 1962 he has lived and worked in Styria, where he had a 15-metre-high wooden studio built according to his plans. From 1972 to 1997 he was professor and head of a master class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

The appeal of his works was described by one of his most important patrons, Monsignor Otto Mauer, as "Mozartean", "that is: sublime without being pontifical". His works can be found in many private collections and in museums around the world, such as Albertina, Vienna, Museum für Moderne Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, Museum of Art, Portland, Oregon, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. "As long as I look at things, they are alive ... I don't paint geometrically because you don't see things geometrically. I have always started from nature, from what I see ...", says Wolfgang Hollegha about his pictorial world.