Martha Jungwirth

Born 1940, Lives and works in Vienna, Austria.

Martha Jungwirth has occupied an important position in Austrian art history since the 1960s. After her studies at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna from 1956 to 1963, Jungwirth appeared in public with works in various media, such as pencil drawings, watercolors, and works in oil and ink. In 1968 she was the sole woman among the founding members of the loose “Wirklichkeiten” [“Realities”] group of artists, yet even then she pursued her own, distinctive path, oscillating between gesturally abstract and formal compositions. […] Jungwirth’s painting process emerges from a combination of intuitive spontaneity and control of her aesthetic principles at the same time. This tension between the unconscious and the calculated, between gesture, form, trace and color, provides the environment for the artist not only to examine mirror images of her inner moods, but also the essential basic principles of painting. Her creative process is, in effect, one of continuous experimentation with an open outcome: Reacting to sudden impulses, Jungwirth places energetic, colorful marks on canvas or paper that then, through layering, overlapping and blurring, all at once recede, as the ambivalent act of showing and hiding sets the pictorial plane in motion. Her resolutely impulsive working method, however, always comes through. Coincidence and energetic intuition, with all the corrections, stains and streaks they bring to the painting process, remain visible and create a richly varied atmosphere in works that range from the seemingly ephemeral, transparent to the dense and pastose. 

Martha Jungwirth’s characteristic compositions, which perform an elegant balancing act on the thin line between realism and abstraction, and distinguish themselves through their eruptive, gestural style as well as their powerful colors, are poetic and dramatic representations of experiences, emotions and memories that convey a deep awareness of the immeasurableness of reality. (Text: Hans-Peter Wipplinger in: Martha Jungwirth. Retrospective, published on the occasion of the exhibition at Kunsthalle Krems 2014.) 

Martha Jungwirth studied at the University of Applied Arts of Vienna in the class of Prof. Carl Unger. She taught in the same school between 1967 and 1977 and later at the International Summer Academy in 1991 and the Summer Academy in Berlin in 1992. Through her artistic career, Martha Jungwirth received several awards, among them the Oskar-Kokoschka-Preis in 2018. Some of her major solo and group exhibitions include Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany, Museum Liaunig, Neuhaus, Austria, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Kunsthaus Zug, Albertina Modern, Vienna, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria, Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria, Belvedere 21, Vienna, Austria, Essl Museum. Kunst der Gegenwart, Klosterneuburg/Vienna, Austria, MUSA, Vienna, Austria, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems, Austria, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna, Austria, Museum Moderner Kunst – Stiftung Wörlen, Passau, Germany, Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Vienna, Austria, documenta 6, Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, Secession, Vienna, Austria, Österreichischer Pavillon Expo 1967, Montreal, Canada, Secession, Vienna, Austria.