Hans Staudacher

Biography

Hans Staudacher is undoubtedly one of the most important Austrian artists of the post-war period. Initially learning painting as an autodidact, he then attended Arnold Clementschitsch's painting school in Carinthia, where he began to produce small-format abstract works in grey-black. He subsequently moved to Vienna, where these were slowly replaced by larger multicoloured paintings. Between 1954 and 1962 he repeatedly travelled to Paris, where he began to study the art of Tachisme (or Art Informel) and Lettrisme represented there.

Tachisme was the European answer to American Abstract Expressionism and emerged in the 1940s and 50s. The name comes from the French word "tache" (stain). An important source for this type of painting was the surrealist doctrine of automatism. This refers to art forms that arise unplanned and uncontrolled. The aim is to visually represent the subconscious. Lettrisme is a subordination of Tachisme, which was created by the French artist George Mathieu, who combined this visual representation with words and writing. These art forms have had a lasting influence on Staudacher.

In his work, spontaneity and gesture are the real forces. He perceives his surroundings, verbalises and describes, puts his images into sentences and notes them down in exclamation marks. Everything is action - in the rhythmic, nervous drumming of splashes of paint and in lines and brushstrokes thrown down with aggressive gestures, a new reality emerges in an act of liberation. Nothing unspoken is left behind, but a direct political, social, experiential and autobiographical call is made. Primal emotions are transposed and in the border area of the secure he brings in something new, which thus makes him a great avant-gardist embracing people, races, religions and continents.

In 1956 Staudacher represented Austria with eight pictures at the 28th Venice Biennale. In 1976 Hans Staudacher was awarded the title of professor. Among his numerous awards are the main prize at the Tokyo Biennale in 1965, the Culture Prize of the Province of Carinthia in 1989 and the Golden Decoration of Honour of the City of Vienna in 2004.

For Hans Staudacher's 90th birthday, the Vienna Hilger Gallery organised the exhibition 90 Years Against the Current in early 2013. Hans Staudacher died in Vienna in 2021.