Arnulf Rainer
Arnulf Rainer, (born 1929
in
Baden, Austria), is an Austrian painter and is internationally
renowned for his abstract informal art.
In his early years, Rainer was influenced by the
Surrealism. In 1950, he
founded the Hundsgruppe (dog group) together with
Ernst Fuchs,
Arik Brauer and Josef
Mikl. After
1954, Rainers style evolved towards Destruction of Forms, with
blackenings, overpaintings and maskings of
illustrations and
photographs, dominating his later work. He was close to the Vienna
Actionism, featuring body art
and painting under drug influence.
In 1978,
he received the
Great Austrian National Prize. In the same year, and in 1980, he
became the Austrian representative at the
Venice Biennale. From 1981 to 1995, Rainer
held a professorship at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna -
the same place where he aborted his own studies after three days,
unsatisfied.