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Arnulf Rainer
Austria, 1929

His commitment to the search for new pictorial approaches, accompanied by his performative work and extensive written documentation, have enshrined Arnulf Rainer as one of the most influential living artists.

Always exalting the body language that painting implies, the artist highlights the first forms of human expression and, in the 1970s, he begins to photograph himself, creating a link between the theatrical and the graphic as a means of expression.

Near to Viennese Actionism and exploring gestures through performance, he expands his practice to video, and begins painting with his hands, which will accompany him throughout his career.

Mainly interested in automatism and the desire to destroy conventional communication in order to recover the richness of human expression, Arnulf Rainer bases his expressiveness on the concealment of images of other artists and self-portraits, reaching abstraction and almost total obscuration of forms. In this sense, his body of work has always aimed to free itself from its own limitations, even exceeding by the form of canvases the conventional standards.

In 1978, he represented Austria at the Venice Biennale and participated in multiple editions of Documenta Kassel over the years. Several museums have dedicated retrospectives to his work, including the Albertina Museum, Stedelijk Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Nationalgalerie, Kunsthalle Bern, and Kunstverein Hamburg.

His works are part of collections such as Stedelijk, MoMA New York, Ludwig Museum, Tate Britain, the Metropolitan Museum, Guggenheim, and Centre Georges Pompidou, among others.

 

 

 

 

Artworks in ARCO 2025

Arnulf Rainer
Blumenserie
ca. 2000
Mixed media on paper on wood
44 x 31,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Blumenserie
ca. 2000
Mixed media on paper on wood
44 x 31,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Hand- und Fingermalerei
1987-88
Oil on cardboard on wood
54 x 77 cm

 

 

Rot Blau Gelb

The art of Arnulf Rainer the “black over painting”, with which he covers previous work, is world famous. We overlook the fact that over paintings in red, blue, green and white also exist and thus that color always belonged to his means of expression, as this volume vividly demonstrates.

DESCRIPTION

Characteristic of Rainer’s work is not only the use of paint, but also the way that he applies it, as the energetic use of physical strength in his hand and finger paintings from the 1970s and 1980s shows. At the end of this period, he changed over to a more transparent painting method and used broad brushes to apply the paint like a veil. Blattmalerei, Engel, Geologica, Goya, Landschaften, Mikrokosmos and Makrokosmos.

 

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2015-16
Acrylic on paper on wood
52 x 37 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2015-16
Tempera on paper on wood
52 x 37 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2015-16
Acrylic on paper on wood
52 x 36,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2015-16
Temper on paper on wood
52 x 37 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2015-16
Acrylic on paper on wood
52 x 37 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2015-16
Acrylic on paper on wood
52 x 37 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2005
Tempera on wood
85 x 64 cm

 

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2005
Tempera on wood
87,5 x 70 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2004
Tempera on wood
82,5 x 62,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2004
Temper on wood
84,5 x 64 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2004
Tempera on wood
85 x 64 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled (C05)
2002
Acrylic on paper on wood
61 x 43,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled (C02)
2002
Acrylic on paper on wood
64 x 51,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2001
Temper on wood
82,5 x 62,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2001
Tempera on wood
82,5 x 62,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2001
Tempera on wood
82,5 x 62,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2001
Temper on wood
82,5 x 62,5 cm

 

 

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2000
Temper on wood
82,5 x 62,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2000
Tempera on wood
83 x 62,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
2000
Tempera on wood
82,5 x 62,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Blumenserie
ca. 2000
Mixed media on paper on wood
44 x 31,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Blumenserie
ca. 2000
Mixed media on paper on wood
44 x 31,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Blumenserie
ca. 2000
Mixed media on paper on wood
44 x 31,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Blumenserie
ca. 2000
Mixed media on paper on wood
44 x 31,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Blumenserie
ca. 2000
Mixed media on paper on wood
44 x 31,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Blumenserie
ca. 2000
Mixed media on paper on wood
44 x 31,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
C01. Untitled (Botticelli)
1998-99
Acrylic on paper on wood
84,5 x 64,5 cm

 

 

Farbenfest

Born in Baden, Austria in 1929. Member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Berlin and Vienna, Max Beckman Prize and International Photography Prize of New York. He has had retrospectives shows in the Guggenheim of New York, Galleria d’arte Moderno di Bolonia, Georges Pompidou in Paris, Kunsthalle Wien, Nationalgalerie in Berlin, and Albertina Museum in Viena and participated in de Kassel Documenta and the Biennale di Venezia in several occasions. His work can be found, among others, in the collections of the Tate Gallery, MOMA, Ludwig Museum, Stedelijk Amsterdam, NeueNatioanl Gallery in Berlin, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum NYC etc.

Interested in the automatism Arnulf Rainer he started very soon to base his expressivity in the act of hiding existing images getting closer to abstraction, and to the total concealment of forms.Always emphasizing the human act of painting and the body language that painting involves, Rainer praises the first forms of human expression, using the hands to extend the painting, and with unconsciousness as a creative goal.

In the 70’s he starts to take photographs of himself. Creating a link between the theatrical and the graphic as a media of expression he gets closer to the Viennese Actionism and exploring body language through performance he expands his practice to video.

In the last series of work presented at the gallery within these videos, painting stops being closer to monochrome to show brighter colors in different layers, more transparent and free. In Beautiful Ladies, the artist goes back to the faces, one of his main themes, with the intention to touch preexistent images and emphasize them.

Sign of the obsession of the artist to be free of his own limitations, his paintings show his search of the maximum expressivity trough colors, textures and gestures. Even the format of some canvases exceeds the conventional limits and adopts the form of the Latin cross.

From the exaltation to the resignation, from the conventional image or the photographic one distorted, to the absence of images, each series of works by Arnulf Rainer is different, but they all share the wish to destroy the conventional communication to recover the richness of the human expression.

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Lotus gelb
1996
Temper on cardboard on wood
103,5 x 73,5 cm

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
1996
Temper on cardboard on wood
103,5 x 73,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Rosa Blüten
1996
Tempera on cardboard on wood
103,5 x 73,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Firmament
1995-96
Temper on cardboard on wood
76,5 x 105,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
1995
Temper on cardboard on wood
105 x 76,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
1995
Temper on cardboard on wood
105 x 76,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Wind Mühle
1995
Oil on paper and cardboard on wood
102 x 73 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Makrokosmos
1994/95
Tempera on cardboard on wood
105,5 x 76,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Mikrokosmos
1994
Temper on cardboard on wood
105,5 x 76,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
1993
Oil on paper on wood
60 x 46 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
1993
Pastel, oil on paper and cardboard on wood
63 x 84 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Engel in landschaft
1991-92
Oil on paper and cardboard on wood
73 x 102 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Landschaft
1991-92
Pastel and oil on paper on wood
73 x 102 cm

 

Arnulf Rainer
C17. GOYA serie
1983
Mixed technique on photograph on wood
63,5 x 52,5 cm

 

 

 

 

Visages

With a selection of artworks spanning from 1970 to 2002, Visages reviews the importance of faces in the work of Arnulf Rainer through three different series: his self-portraits or Face farces, the Death Masks or Totenmaskes and finally the veiled pictures or Schleierbildern, in which the artist uses as a departure point preexisting images from the history of art.

With the prominence of the Face Farces, which depict a person who can only express himself through the movements of his body, in an attempt of the artist to dissolve himself, as a metaphoric gesture of the oblivion, completely deliberated, of what art is, this exhibition gathers a series of works that insist the whole of art can find its origins in an artist. Either a naked man without any tools for the act of painting, overflowed by painting, either his gaze covering preexisting images.

The overpaintings of the Schleierbilder are the physical trace of this gaze, without the intention of adding any further meaning to the previous image, but rather remove excess meaning anchored to the image through habits and historicization of art.

‘Just as Cézanne, undaunted, observed his apples and his mountains, and day by day helped them to life in his painting, so too does Rainer tirelessly recounts what he observes, day by day, in art, paintings and life’ Jean-Michel Foray.

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P22 (‘Goya’ series)
1983
Mixed technique on photography
24 x 17 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
C22. GOYA series
1983
Mixed technique on photograph on wood
63 x 52,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
C21. GOYA series
1983
Mixed technique on photograph on wood
62,5 x 52 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
C20. GOYA series
1983
Mixed media on photograph on wood
63 x 52,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
C18. GOYA series
1983
Mixed media on photograph on wood
63 x 52,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P20. GOYA series
1983
Mixed technique on photograph
24 x 17 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P18. GOYA series
1983
Mixed media on photography
24 x 17 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P19 (‘GOYA’ series)
Mixed media on photograph
24 x 17 cm

 

Arnulf Rainer
P17. GOYA serie
1983
Mixed media on photograph
24 x 17 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
C19. GOYA series
1983
Mixed media on photograph on wood
63 x 52,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
C11. Riemenschneiderserie
1980-81
Oilstick on photograph on wood
62 x 52 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P05. Christusköpfe series
1980-81
Oilstick on photograph on wood
62 x 52 cm

 

Arnulf Rainer
P07. Christusköpfe series
1979-80
Mixed media on paper
26,5×19,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P06. Christusköpfe series
1979-80
Indian ink on paper
27 x 20 cm

 

Arnulf Rainer
P01. Christusköpfe series
1979
Indian ink on paper
30 x 25,5 cm

 

Arnulf Rainer
P02. Christusköpfe series
1979
Indian ink on paper
30,5 x 25 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P14. Totenmasken series. Friedrich Nietzsche
1978
Pencil on photograph
30 x 21,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P13. Totenmasken series. Ludwig van Beethoven
1978
Pencil on photograph
29,5 x 25 cm

 

Arnulf Rainer
P10 (‘Totenmasken. Franz Liszt’ series)
1978
Pencil on photograph
29,5 x 25 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P08. Totenmasken series. Verwischte Maske
1978
Mixed media on photograph
30 x 24,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P09. Totenmasken series. Friedrich Nietzsche
1978
Mixed media on photograph
30 x 24,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
C16. Face Farces series
1970-75
Mixed media on photograph on wood
62 x 52 cm

 

Arnulf Rainer
C15. Serie Face Farces
1970-75
Mixed media on photograph on wood
54,5 x 64,5 cm

 

Arnulf Rainer
C14. Face Farces series
1970-75
Mixed media on photograph on wood
50 x 61,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
C13. Face Farces series
1970-75
Mixed media on photograph on wood
50,5 x 63 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P29. Face Farces series
1970-75
Pencil on photograph
18 x 24 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P30. Face Farces series
1970-75
Pencil on photograph
18 x 24 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
C12. Face Farces series. Porträt Samuel D.
1970-75
Mixed media on photograph on wood
63 x 53 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P26. Face Farces series
1970-75
Pencil on photograph
24 x 18 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P28. Face Farces series
1970-75
Pencil on photograph
28 x 24 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
P25. Face Farces series
1970-75
Pencil on photograph
24 x 18 cm

 

Arnulf Rainer
P24. Face Farces series
1970-75
Pencil on photograph
31,5 x 24,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer

1970-75
Pencil on photograph
31,5 x 24,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
undated
Acrylic on paper on wood
51,5 x 37 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
undated
Acrylic on paper on wood
52 x 37 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
undated
Temper on paper on wood
51,5 x 36,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
undated
Acrylic on paper on wood
40,5 x 30 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
undated
Tempera on wood
43,5 x 31,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
undated
Acrylic on paper on wood
43,5 x 31,5 cm

 

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
undated
Acrylic on paper on wood
43,5 x 31,5 cm

 

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
undated
Acrylic on paper on wood
43,5 x 31,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
undated
Acrylic on paper on wood
43,5 x 31,5 cm

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
undated
Acrylic on paper on wood
31,5 x 43,5 cm

 

 

 

Arnulf Rainer
Untitled
undated
Tempera on paper on wood
51,5 x 36,5 cm