Arnulf Rainer, the Austrian artist best known for his ‘overpainting’ technique, has died.
From the 1950s onwards Rainer would paint over existing works, his own and those of others, adding abstract gestures and sweeping brushstrokes to the original composition. The style was born of necessity, Rainer explaining that, when he started, ‘Overpainting was not a philosophical concept. I had no money so I went to flea markets and bought old paintings as they were cheaper than new canvases.”
In time however the artist, exposed to the ideas of the Viennese Actionists, came to recognise the work as being about destruction and renewal, creating his free-flowing compositions over copies of Old Masters; over a suite of photographic self-portraits in which Rainer gurns and twists his faces into monstrous expressions; and in photographs representing some of the twentieth century greatest tragedies, including the Holocaust and the bombing of Hiroshima.
In 1968, the Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts in Wien organised one of the first retrospectives of his work and later exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Bern and the Lenbachhaus Munich (both in 1977) marked his breakthrough. Rainer participated in documenta in Kassel in 1972, 1977, and 1982, and in the Venice Biennale in 1978. During the 1980s solo exhibitions were held at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1980); Centre Pompidou, Paris (1984); Abbazia di San Gregorio, Venice (1986); a Self Portraits show that travelled across the United States (1986); and a major retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1989).
Rainer was appointed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (1981–95) and became a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin in 1981.
Recent retrospectives include the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2000); Kunstmuseum Den Haag (2005); Alte Pinakothek, Munich (2010); ALBERTINA, Vienna (2014 and 2019–20); Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz (2017); and MARe – Muzeul de Artă Recentă, Bucharest (2022). In honour of the artist’s 95th birthday in 2024, a major monographic exhibition was held at the Arnulf Rainer Museum, which was established in his native Baden in 2009.
