Franz Grabmayr

_{Carinthia 1927 - 2015 Vienna}

The Austrian painter Franz Grabmayr (1927–2015) is regarded as one of the leading exponents of expressive, body-oriented painting in the post-war period. He became known above all for his intense exploration of movement, nature and the human body. The so-called ‘dance sheets’ occupy a special place in his oeuvre: in these works, Grabmayr translates the dynamics of dance into powerful, gestural traces of colour. Rather than a classical depiction, he is interested in the immediate experience of rhythm, energy and physical presence. The dancers are not portrayed as such, but appear as vibrating fields of colour and traces of movement. Grabmayr often worked directly on site, close to the action, which lends his works an extraordinary immediacy.