Wolfgang Hollegha

Wolfgang Hollegha was born on March 4, 1929 in Klagenfurt. He lost his parents at an early age, which is why he grew up with his aunt in Frohnleiten in Styria and graduated in Graz. From 1947 to 1954, he studied with Josef Dobrowsky at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and nude drawing with Herbert Boeckl. Together with his friends Josef Mikl, Markus Prachensky and Arnulf Rainer, he founded the group around the Galerie St. Stephan in 1955. Hollegha dedicated a solo exhibition to the artist association sponsored by Monsignore Otto Mauer in 1959. The New York art critic Clement Greenberg discovered him at a Cologne exhibition in 1959 and invited him to a group exhibition of the best-known abstract painters. The following year, his sponsor even dedicated a solo exhibition to him. Despite his success, Hollegha did not stay in the United States, even though New York was considered to be the centre of modern painting. In 1964 he took part in the Documenta 3 in Kassel and in 1967 in the Biennale in Sao Paulo. From 1972 to 1997, he accepted a professorship at the Vienna Academy. Hollegha lives and works in Vienna and in Rechberg in Styria. He there had studio, as high as a tower, built at his farm so that the powerful impressions of nature could be directly incorporated into his work. He resolves the inspirations he derived in this way into abstract structures and transfers them to the large-format canvases that are characteristic of him.