jungwirth_7f

Austrian Post is now dedicating a commemorative stamp to the distinguished artist, featuring an untitled work from 2013 taken from the “Fundraising” series.

Rosita Desmoliano – that was the tender but ironic nickname given to Martha Jungwirth by her husband, as she frequently, upon seeing works by the great masters, responded with “Des mol i a no!” (I am going to paint that too).

Martha Jungwirth, who was born in Vienna in 1940, studied at the University of Applied Arts from 1956 to 1963, and was able to celebrate her first success in the 1960s, is something of a loner on the domestic art scene. Martha Jungwirth loves to experiment with colours, and her works are always highly energetic, regardless of whether she chooses to present their focus in a watercolour painting or working with oils or ink. She likes to allow the viewer to see traces of the painting process. That can be seen on a painting depicted on a new Austrian stamp.

She applies colour with élan, enjoying and often painting outdoors; in fact, as expert Florian Steininger once said, nature is literally transformed into atmosphere and painting tout court. Hans-Peter Wipplinger, who staged the first retrospective of Jungwirth’s works in the Kunsthalle Krems put it in these terms: “Distinguished by their eruptive gestural stroke and strong colors, Jungwirth’s characteristic compositions are poetic and dramatic notations of experiences, moods, and memories, abstracted to a degree that leaves room for a free flow of associations”.

Martha Jungwirth, who lives and works in Vienna and Neumarkt an der Raab, was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art in 2012; she also received the Theodore Körner Prize and the Joan Mirò Prize early in her career.