(Schmalix)

The Austrian painter Hubert Schmalix is best-known as a Neo-Expressionist. In the late 1970s and early 80s, his powerfully colorful works explored the genres of the still life, landscape, nude and portrait in a process that became increasingly expressive, taking on a great affinity to the painters of Die Brücke. In the mid-1980s, the female nude became Schmalix's dominant subject, and he began to work in the tradition of colorful Asian woodcuts. In the 1990s, his vocabulary expanded through his encounter with West Coast school painting to include religious subjects, the image of Christ and cityscapes of Los Angeles. In his most recent works, Schmalix has reduced his palette, and, in the tradition of photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, devoted himself to the portrayal of the female nude in erotic bondage rituals. Featuring a representative selection of paintings, this book is the first to provide a survey of the artist's entire oeuvre.