Hans Staudacher

Hans STAUDACHER born on 14 Jan­u­ary 1923 in St. Urban (Carinthia), grew up in Vil­lach. Impressed by the painters of the Nötsch cir­cle, he began very ear­ly to work artis­ti­cal­ly as an auto­di­dact and attend­ed the paint­ing school of Arnold Clements­chitsch in Carinthia. In 1950 he moved to Vien­na and occu­pied him­self with works by Alfred Kubin, Egon Schiele and Gus­tav Klimt and joined the Vien­na Seces­sion. Dur­ing his numer­ous stays in Paris from 1954 to 1962, he inten­sive­ly stud­ied the work of George Math­ieu and “Let­trism”, the com­bi­na­tion of image and writ­ing. In 1956 Hans Stau­dacher rep­re­sent­ed Aus­tria at the Venice Bien­nale. In 1975, togeth­er with Cor­nelius Kolig and Got­thard Muhr, he took part in the XIII Bien­ni­al in São Paulo as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Aus­tria. Hans Stau­dacher is con­sid­ered a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Aus­tri­an Informel, Tachism and Action Paint­ing. He cre­at­ed expres­sive pen and ink draw­ings and resin paint­ings, con­sis­tent­ly devot­ed him­self to abstract paint­ing, took part in paint­ing events and designed mosaics and stained glass win­dows. Stau­dacher par­tic­i­pat­ed in numer­ous exhi­bi­tions at home and abroad. His work has been hon­oured by awards and dis­tinc­tions, includ­ing the main prize of the Tokyo Bien­nale, 1965, the Cul­tur­al Prize of the Province of Carinthia, 1989, the Sil­ver Medal for Mer­it of the City of Vien­na and the Prize for Paint­ing of the City of Vien­na, 1983, the Gold­en Dec­o­ra­tion of Hon­our of the City of Vien­na and the Cross of Hon­our for Sci­ence and Art of the Repub­lic of Aus­tria, 2004. The artist lived and worked in Vien­na and Finken­stein am Faak­er See in Carinthia.
Hans Stau­dacher dies on 17 Jan­u­ary 2021 in Vienna.