Adolf Frohner was an Austrian painter, graphic designer and founding member of the Wiener Aktionismus (which translates as ‘Viennese actionism’), an avant-garde movement emerging in the 1960s in Vienna. Following a self-taught education and attending lectures by Herbert Boeckl as an auditing student, a stay in Paris in 1961 made a lasting impression on him. Here, he discovered Nouveau Réalisme and decided to pursue a career as an artist. He gained international recognition following his participation in the biennials of São Paulo (1969) and Venice (1970). Later in his career, he focused mainly on painting and graphic design, though violence continued to be a central theme of his works. From 1972 he was a professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, influencing the painting class for more than a decade.