That probably falls under Viennese humour: “Two assholes come in the door” is what Martha Jungwirth gallingly called a “double portrait” last year.

The portrait with the hearty title is dedicated to two gentlemen who strayed into their studio unannounced and apparently behaved with little gallantry there.

If it was the painter's revenge on the unwanted guests, it could have been worse.

Certainly, they may stand there a little stiff, maybe even a bit dumb, but in their appearance they are charged with the skilful stylistic foreshortening, the confident abstractions and translations into the painterly, which the Viennese born in 1940 has always been good at.

The man on the left is shown with straight, uncompromising brushstrokes, on the other hand hectically gesticulating, but without shoes, basically also without feet, his sidekick on the right.

Both are not identifiable for the outsider.

But it is certainly Jungwirth's handwriting.

To be examined now in Düsseldorf, at their first institutional appearance in this country.

This artist is like many of her contemporaries who have waited a long time for a belated appreciation.

The colors stand on the firm paper

There are themes that have spilled over from the last century and could actually be considered completely told - such as the "relationship between abstraction and representation".

Whoever enters the Kunsthalle, however, feels it immediately: the placements in the tiny to stately formats are economical and economical, cover the painting surfaces only minimally, especially in the huge "cinema hall", and yet they effortlessly condense the exhibition spaces.

They even ignite a certain opulence.

Jungwirth's style of painting unfolds on paper, a painting ground that looks like wrapping paper in terms of color and is always laminated to canvas.

The oil paint never penetrates into the pores, rather it smudges the surface.

Martha Jungwirth's exhibition offers numerous pictures from the 1980s to the present day, which are identified as portraits, they are called "Self-Portrait (from the series Pedagogically Worthless)", "Richard Gerstl, Portrait of the Frey Sisters", "Self-Portrait with My Sister".

However, the actually relevant expression carriers of the portrait often remain vague and unrecognizable, eyes and face can only be guessed at, if at all, hands hardly appear;

the figure is definitely not framed by contours.

External resemblance is out of the question.

One could only speculate about the character traits of those portrayed, but the identity of the painting is clearly evident.

It is characterized by an urgent openness, relies on the right access,

seems spontaneous and impetuous and yet the result always appears organized and goal-oriented in the end.

If a picture from 2020 is christened “The Corona Prison” and can suggest a cage, then this also remains rather insinuated, and here too the expression of autonomous painting is in the foreground.

Jungwirth explained that she came from watercolors and wanted “no filler”.

As she became interested in oil paint, the paintings became bulkier and denser.

It is her concern to "combine the liquid and the compact of the oil paint with each other".

Jungwirth explained that she came from watercolors and wanted “no filler”.

As she became interested in oil paint, the paintings became bulkier and denser.

It is her concern to "combine the liquid and the compact of the oil paint with each other".

Jungwirth explained that she came from watercolors and wanted “no filler”.

As she became interested in oil paint, the paintings became bulkier and denser.

It is her concern to "combine the liquid and the compact of the oil paint with each other".

Husband's face in informal style

We only learn from the title of a series of portraits of the Viennese art historian and museum director Alfred Schmeller, to whom Jungwirth had given his vows in the late 1960s.

Once she paints his head with Wolsian energy.

It is said that it was his marriage to Schmeller, a protagonist on the Austrian scene, that blocked Jungwirth's career for a long time.

Such a thing was definitely in the offing when she co-founded the artist group “Realities” alongside Kurt “Kappa” Kocherscheidt, among others, and was invited to documenta 6 in 1977.

The fact is, on the other hand, that it was only in 2010 that an artist colleague made a significant contribution to a new appreciation for Jungwirth's work: when Albert Oehlen curated a group show with pictures from the Essl Collection,

he became aware of her paintings in the depot and was so enthusiastic that he was the only one in the exhibition "Beautiful Klosterneuburg" to dedicate a room to the painter.

The pointer was taken by large institutions such as the Albertina in Vienna as well as by a financially strong gallery.

And last but not least, the jury of the Grand Austrian State Prize, which Jungwirth was awarded in 2021.

Animal pictures are also exhibited in Düsseldorf. Jungwirth paints largely abstract dogs based on Goya's "Pinturas negras". The reason for the most recent one was the catastrophic fire in Australia, which killed numerous animals.

The creatures are often reduced to traces, the formats could appear as sketches enlarged to gigantic proportions, but make no mistake: line and emptiness complement each other.

Jungwirth seems to be greeting Cy Twombly with a melancholy “bouquet of tulips”;

the color of the paper ground plays it out particularly impressively here.

Most recently, she docks with the younger generation, paying homage to Lady Gaga in a slim portrait format.

However, the two versions of the Maya from Goya's oeuvre are more convincing.

Anything is suitable for these recumbents, again given on a brittle, packing-paper basis,

Martha Jungwirth.

Kunsthalle Dusseldorf;

until November 20th.

catalog follows.