Wolfgang Hollegha

Wolf­gang HOLLEGHA was born on March 4, 1929 in Kla­gen­furt. From 1947 to 1954 he stud­ied at the Acad­e­my of Fine Arts in Vien­na (mas­ter class Josef Dobrowsky). Hol­legha is one of those artists who helped abstract art make its break­through in Aus­tria after the Sec­ond World War. Togeth­er with Josef Mikl, Markus Prachen­sky and Arnulf Rain­er, he found­ed the “St. Stephan painter group” in 1956. In 1959 Hol­legha was invit­ed to a group exhi­bi­tion in New York with Bar­nett New­man and Mor­ris Louis, among oth­ers. On the occa­sion of a solo exhi­bi­tion in New York, anoth­er trip to the USA fol­lowed in 1960. In 1962 Hol­legha moved to the Rech­berg near Frohn­leit­en and set up his stu­dio there, where he still lives and works today. He com­plet­ed his 14 meter high stu­dio tow­er in 1976. From 1972 to 1997 Wolf­gang Hol­legha was pro­fes­sor and head of a mas­ter class at the Acad­e­my of Fine Arts in Vien­na. From 1985 he trav­eled reg­u­lar­ly to France and Spain. Hol­legha has received numer­ous hon­ors and awards, includ­ing the Guggen­heim Prize for Paint­ing (1957), the Carnegie Prize (1960), the City of Vien­na Prize (1984) and the City of Vienna’s Gold­en Medal of Hon­or (1990). In his works, Hol­legha did not cre­ate an image of nature, but rather pre­sent­ed us with a col­or­ful inter­play of sur­faces in which he cap­tured the whole­ness of nature. The artist died on Decem­ber 2, 2023.
2010 – first exhi­bi­tion in the gallery Welz.