Art of the 20th Century





A Revolution in the Arts


 

Art Styles in 20th century Art Map








Arnulf Rainer 







 

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.