(born Baden near Vienna in 1929)
Untitled, c.1960, signed Rainer and on the reverse signed Rainer and inscribed 4/200, oil, wax crayon on canvas, 35 x 50 cm, on a wooden frame, (K)

Compare:
Arnulf Rainer, abgrundtiefe.perspektiefe, Retrospektive 1947–1997, Kunsthalle Krems, published by Christian Brandstätter, 1997, p.p.123, 128, 129 - open overpaintings (bends, curves, bundles of colour, etc.)
In 1960
Rainer took part in the ‘Monochrome Malerei’ exhibition (together with artists including Fontana, Manzoni, Klein, Rothko, Geiger, Girke) in Leverkusen. The Stämme series was executed as a development of the vertical designs dating from 1952.

In 1961
Rainer was convicted by the courts for the public overpainting of an award-winning work. At the opening of the ‘Junge Stadt sieht junge Kunst’ exhibition, he demonstratively overpainted the work Mond and Figuren II by graphic artist Helga Pape from Schoeppenstedt (district of Braunschweig) which had just won a prize, sticking a label onto the work printed with the inscription Overpainted by Arnulf Rainer. Austrian newspaper Die Presse reported: ‘Quickly summoned, the police arrested the ‘black-outer,’ interrogated him and imprisoned him temporarily in a jail cell. Hildesheim’s public prosecutor now accuses him of having ‘deliberately damaged a piece of art on public exhibition by smearing over an etching at the ‘Junge Stadt sieht junge Kunst’ exhibition in Wolfsburg with black paint – a punishable offense according to § 304 StGB (German penal code).’ The Viennese painting-attacker, we hear, can expect a stiff fine.’

In 1962
Rainer was invited to exhibit in Düsseldorf (Galerie Schmela), Karlsruhe (Galerie Rottloff), and Tokyo. He is shown at the Biennale in Milan and at the Comparaisons exhibition at the Musée national d’Art moderne-Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

From: Arnulf Rainer, ‘Aller Anfang ist schwer’, Frühe Arbeiten 1949–1961, DuMont 2009

Provenance:
Minami Gallery, Tokyo Private Collection, Tokyo