Adolf Frohner biografia

Adolf Frohner was an Austrian painter, engraver, and sculptor, one of the founders along with Otto Muehl and Hermann Nitsch of Viennese Actionism. He was born in Großinzersdorf in 1924. In 1952, he moved to Vienna where he began painting as a self-taught artist and attended courses at the Academy of Fine Arts as a guest student under the guidance of Herbert Boeckl.
In 1961, with the help of Boeckl, Adolf Frohner obtained a scholarship that allowed him to study for a year in Paris. In the city of light, he met and associated with the Nouveaux Realistes, while the following year, together with colleagues Hermann Nitsch and Otto Muehl, he carried out a rather controversial performance Die Blutorgel which marked the birth of Viennese Actionism. Following the dissolution of the artistic group, the painter began working in the studio of Daniel Spoerri.
In 1969, he participated in the São Paulo Biennial and the following year in the Venice Biennale. During this period, he mainly created paintings on board and engravings, often depicting women subjected to violence.
In 1972, he simultaneously began an academic career at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Adolf Frohner died in Vienna in 2017.