2135
Rainer, Arnulf
Born 1929 Baden by Vienna, lives and works in Enzenkirchen and Teneriffa.
«Rotes Kreuz unter Kopf (red cross under head)».
1969/70 and 1994. Oil pastels, coloured pencil and pencil over drypoint in colour «Flammenherz (flaming heart)» on strong laid paper. Etching signed lower right, numbered 39/9(9) lower left and with the publisher's drystamp «ATELIER GERERSDORFER WIEN». Overpainting titled lower middle.
H 54, W 37 cm (sheet). Gallery frame.
The original etching «Flammenherz (flaming heart)» (catalogue raisonné Breicha R 102 II) was published by Atelier Gerersdorfer, Vienna, and printed by Rudolf Lauterbach, Vienna.
Arnulf Rainer has been known as «the overpainter» since the 1950s. He mostly reworked works by other artists, often photographs. In this piece, Rainer painted over his own colour etching from 1969/70. It represents one of his classic pictorial subjects - the cross - an elementary form that Rainer takes up again and again and develops in numerous variants, without understanding it as sacral art. 25 years later he turns to this etching again with an overpainting that shows Rainer's typical dynamic strokes and that juxtaposes the cross and the head (almost equally).
Authentication: We would like to thank Ms Petra Berndorfer, Studio Arnulf Rainer, for the authentication and dating of the overpainting via E-Mail, based on photos, 15.03.2022.
Provenance: private collection Markgräflerland.
Catalogue raisonné: The work will be included in the upcoming catalogue raisonné.

Condition report