Markus Prachensky

_{Innsbruck 1932 - 2011 Wien}

Markus Prachensky was born in Innsbruck in 1932, as the son of the architect and painter Wilhelm Nicolaus Prachensky. He moved to Vienna in 1952 and studied architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts under L. Welzenbacher. From 1953 onward he studied painting, especially under Albert Paris Gütersloh. Prachensky belonged to the circle of artists attached to the Galerie St. Stephan, which was run by Monsignore Otto Mauer, and participated in their exhibitions and activities. He was a founding member of the “Gruppe St. Stephan” together with Wolfgang Hollegha, Josef Mikl and Arnulf Rainer.
After initial attempts in the figural tradition, Prachensky turned to abstract painting in the ’fifties and remains a leading practitioner of informal Tachism even today. Prachensky lived alternatingly in Paris and Vienna from 1957 onward and moved to Berlin in 1963 and to Los Angeles in 1967. He returned to Europe in 1970 and was director of a master-class for painting at the Academy of Fine Arts from 1983 to 2000.