Adolf Frohner biography

Adolf Frohner was an Austrian painter, printmaker, and sculptor among the founders, together 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 ville lumière, he met and frequented the Nouveaux Realistes while the following year, together with colleagues Hermann Nitsch and Otto Muehl, he staged a rather controversial performance Die Blutorgel that marked the birth of Viennese Actionism. After 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 wood and engravings whose subjects often depict women suffering violence.
In 1972, he simultaneously began an academic career at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Adolf Frohner died in Vienna in 2017.