Hans Staudacher

Hans Staudacher was a grand master of Austrian art from the 1950s, until the turn of the millennium. His paintings, which are attributed to informal painting, live on obvious creative joy and intensity. Even in his childhood it became apparent that Hans had it with drawing, the mother was quoted in school, the artist once told in an interview. „Then the teacher said to my mother, look at this, his table, which is completely scribbled from left to right. He has to become a painter who paints and scribbles everything, he has to work. At that time I got used to scribbled all the time. I misunderstood the teacher. He thought I was going to be a painter and a painter, but I thought I was going to be a painter.“

As a painter, he was initially moderately successful in. When he returned to Austria from Paris in the 1950s, his painting style was not recognized in the narrow Austrian art circles. He joined the Vienna Secession and his star slowly rose in the art sky. He led the brush like a floret, impetuous and full of vigour he worked his canvases. Scribble, numbers, series of letters, sentences of words, wild strokes in between. „I’m more of a spontaneous painter who gets rid of his surplus like a boxer. Instead of boxing, I love the canvas.“ The artist’s international breakthrough came in 1965 with the major exhibition in Paris and the Venice Biennale, as well as the main prize of the Tokyo Biennale. „I’ve always been uncritical, otherwise I wouldn’t have come to paint,“ he said of himself and his way of working.

Staudacher is also known for his happenings, during which he experimented with various materials such as wood or rags in his studio. Recognition in Austria was still a few years away: for his 75th birthday, the Kunsthistorisches Museum dedicated a large exhibition to him at the Palais Harrach. He was awarded the Golden Medal of Honour of the City of Vienna in 2004. Hans Staudacher turned his aggression sands onto the canvas, depicting his holy anger at social and political grievances, but always bearing in mind his scribble of childhood, because the impartiality of a child in front of the screen was a desired goal. „I’ve always done it like a little kid at three or five who paints his spots. I would also like to preserve this virginity that this little child has in me.“ (Source: www.kaernten.orf.at)

Hans Staudacher 14 January 1923 – 16 January 2021