Maria Lassnig was born in Kärnten, Austria, in 1919 and studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1940 to 1945. She realized developments that were decisive for her specific oeuvre during her years in Paris, from 1960 to 1968. She then lived for the most part—apart from a stay in Berlin in 1978—in New York, where she tapped a new medium with animated film. An appointment to the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and representation of Austria at the Venice Biennial along with Valie Export then took place in 1980. In 1988, she was the first woman to be awarded the Grand Austrian State Prize for Visual Arts, and was awarded the international Roswitha Haftmann Prize in 2002 and the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the Venice Biennial in 2013. The late and posthumous recognition of her work is also shown by museum exhibitions around the world.
