(Kappel, Carinthia, 1919–2014 Vienna)
‘Selbstporträt als Auto’, signed, dated M. Lassnig 1963, on the folded lower side of the image ‘Selbstporträt als Auto, 1963’, oil on canvas, 71 x 90 cm, framed, (K)

Watch Video: Contemporary Art | November 2015 | Austrian and German Artists

Christa Murken, Maria Lassnig, Ihr Leben und ihr Malerisches Werk. Ihre kunstgeschichtliche Stellung in der Malerei des 20. Jahrhunderts, published by Murken-Altrogge, Herzogenrath 1990, catalogue raisonné page 461/205
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné.

Exhibited and illustrated in the catalogue:
Maria Lassnig, Bilder der sechziger Jahre, mit einem Text von Oswald Wiener, Galerie Klewan, Munich 1989, plate 7 (in colour)

Diary entries 1970
Body-awareness-painting
oh, the artists who are prisoners of their style, who grumpily observe the world and grimly aspire to rise up to the green branch of super-success; throw out your style, change it every week, change your norms every week, change your hair colour, your wigs every day, change your vocabulary, your preconceived ideas regarding your neighbours and politics every day, your way of life every week, change your job, get ahead of the change that time has in store for us. as I became tired in my painting of analysing and representing nature, I began to seek a reality that might be more in my possession than the outside world and discovered it in the bodily frame which I inhabited, the most genuine plainest reality, I only had to become aware of it, in order to be able to project its imprint in fixed focal points on the picture plane. becoming aware of one’s body can arise either through pressure, tension or overstraining one part of the body in a particular body position, that is, to express oneself under pressure or through feelings of tension, in emotions or in fullness or emptiness, etc...
From: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Maria Lassnig, Die Feder ist die Schwester des Pinsels, Tagebücher 1943–1997, DuMont, 2000

Provenance:
Klewan Gallery, Munich
Private Ownership, Germany