Greta Freist
Margaretha Maria Josefa "Greta" Freist (21 July 1904 Weikersdorf – 18 September 1993 Paris) was an Austrian painter and graphic artist.[1]
Career
[edit]Freist studied at the Fröhlich painting school in Vienna,[2] and at the Academy of Fine Arts with Rudolf Bacher and Rudolf Jettmar from 1924 to 1930. She worked as a freelance painter, graphic artist, restorer, ceramist and fabric painter[3] and worked together with her fellow student,[3] and partner Gottfried Goebel.[4] They lived with Heimito von Doderer in a studio in Hartäckerstraße[4] in Döbling, which also became a literary meeting place. Elias Canetti and Otto Basil, among others, frequented there.[3]
In 1936 (or 1937[3]) she emigrated with Goebel to Paris, where she had her first exhibition at the Salon d'Automne.[5] During the war years, her partner Goebel was interned and Freist was arrested several times for black market trafficking.[5] After the war, the French section of the International Art Club, was founded in her studio in 1950.
Her style changed; her early work is characterized by a magically colored realism.[6] From about 1949 to 1967 she painted abstractly. After an inspiring trip to Spain, she turned back to a figurative, fantastic style of painting, combined with a time-critical statement: she wanted to express the dehumanization of the world. From 1988 until her death, she devoted herself to abstraction again. Freist died in Paris in 1993.
Exhibitions
[edit]- 2011 Greta Freist: The Painter Greta Freist – A Parisian from Austria, Gallery at the Albertina, Zetter, Vienna.
- 1961 Solo exhibition of the Cultural Office of the City of Vienna [7]
References
[edit]- ^ Habarta, Gerhard (2021-11-17). Kunstherz: Von den vergeblichen Versuchen zu fliegen (in German). BoD – Books on Demand. ISBN 978-3-7557-1333-3.
- ^ https://digital.belvedere.at/people/525/greta-freist
- ^ a b "Greta Freist - Biografie". www.gretafreist.at. Retrieved 2024-08-29.
- ^ Galerie, Österreichische (1980). Die uns verliessen: österreichische Maler und Bildhauer der Emigration und Verfolgung : [Ausstellung, Österreichische Galerie im Oberen Belvedere in Wien, 28. Mai bis 27. Juli 1980] (in German). Im Selbstverlag der Österreichischen Galerie.
- ^ a b https://www.galerie-albertina.at/en/artists/13473/freist-greta/
- ^ Marciniak, Caroline (2019-03-05). "The Radical Women Artists of Turn-of-the-Century Vienna". Frieze. Retrieved 2024-08-29.
- ^ "Greta Freist (1904 - 1993) - Malerin & Graphikerin | Kunsthandel Hieke". www.hieke-art.com. Retrieved 2024-08-29.