Gottfried Mairwöger Untitled 2000-2003

Gottfried Mairwöger studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1971 under Josef Mikl, then switched to Wolfgang Hollegha from 1973. Hollegha showed him how to work with highly diluted color pigments instead of thick paint, which resulted in his flowing color compositions.
Mairwöger was an important representative of Austrian color field painting. Already at a young age, he gained international success, when in 1976, he could participate in a group exhibition of Austrian artists at the Wentzel Gallery in Hamburg. At this event, he met the American art critic Clement Greenberg, who invited Mairwöger to the United States. During his visit there, he got acquainted with the works of the representatives of color field painting. Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Helen Frankenthaler became important role models for Mairwöger.
One of the characteristics of color field painting is, that color is meticulously used as a pure form of expression. This is well demonstrated in Mairwöger’s painting, in which glazing and opaque layers of paint were applied in an overlapping way on the canvas.