iAlbertinaInnere Stadt
Arnulf Rainer
Tribute to Arnulf Rainer (1929-2025), the uncompromising Austrian innovator whose radical 1950s overpaintings pushed painting to its limits.
More in Vienna
Preview: written before the show opened
In Leaf Painting (1996), Arnulf Rainer coated real silk flowers in glue paint and mounted them on wood. In Light in the Hair (1971) he worked oil paint over a photograph and scratched into it. Painting over things was how he worked for more than seven decades, and this is the Albertina's tribute after his death in late 2025.
The museum holds about 600 of his works and has picked around 70. The arc runs from the radical overpaintings of the 1950s that made his name, through the Face Farces that grew out of photographs of himself from the late 1960s, to the crosses and the Veil Paintings of his late work. Stand in front of Overpainting: Minium Red on Black Ground and you're facing a canvas 197 cm tall.
Albertina admission is €20.90, under-19s get in free, and the museum is open until 21:00 on Wednesdays and Fridays. Public guided tours are scheduled.
Editor's pick
Rainer coated real silk flowers in glue paint, scratched into photographs of himself and laid red over black on canvases almost two metres tall. About 70 works from the Albertina's 600 cover seven decades of painting over things.
Look for
Overpainting: Minium Red on Black Ground
Look for a 1956 canvas almost two metres tall, red laid over a black ground, from the overpaintings that first made Rainer known.
Light in the Hair
A 1971 photograph that Rainer worked over in oil paint and then scratched into.
Winter Evening (Cross)
One of his crosses, painted in oil on wood in 1990/91 and just over two metres wide.
Leaf Painting
Real silk flowers mounted on wood and coated in glue paint, from 1996.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Out-Of-Town Guests
With kids
Under-19s get into the Albertina free.
Also at Albertina
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
8
- Arnulf Rainer© Arnulf Rainer
- Elisabeth von SamsonowHeidi Horten Collection / Elisabeth von Samsonow
- TO SHOE OR NOT TO SHOE. Warhol and othersHeidi Horten Collection
- The Global Power of Love. A Journey Through the CenturiesÖsterreichische Nationalbibliothek
- AlbertinaC.Stadler/Bwag, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Theatermuseum (Palais Lobkowitz)Gryffindor / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5
- State Hall of the Austrian National Library (Prunksaal)Mirej / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT
- Jewish Museum Vienna (Jüdisches Museum Wien)Sonja Bachmayer / Jewish Museum Vienna, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0