Christa Hauer

1925, Vienna, Austria – 2013, St. Pölten, Austria

Christa Hauer studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1941 to 1947. Following stays in New York and Chicago, where she increasingly turned towards abstract painting, she returned to Vienna. Together with her husband, the painter Johann Fruhmann, and her father, the painter Leopold Hauer, she founded and ran the Galerie im Griechenbeisl (which translates as ‘the Gallery in the Greek Pub’) from 1960 until 1971. This gallery became an important centre for the avant-garde and a meeting point for young national and international artists.

Hauer’s painting developed from an initially realistic style, over loose shapes of colour, to geometrical-abstract and semi-abstract landscapes, influenced by Art Informel, US-American art, and travels to Croatia and Cuba. From the 1970s onwards, Hauer was engaged in the feminist art scene, including as a founding member and the first chairperson of the Internationalen Aktionsgemeinschaft bildender Künstlerinnen (which translates as ‘the International Action Group of Women Visual Artists’). Her commitment and effort to secure the visibility and recognition of women artists were visionary and of great influence in the Austrian art scene.

In the Renner-Lanjus Collection

Christa Hauer embodies a key tension in the collection: the local rootedness that welcomes international influences. Hauer and her husband lived in Schloss Lengenfeld from 1970 onwards, not far from Langenlois. Here, they organised cultural events and exhibitions. Their work is considered a central contribution to the cultural renaissance in Lower Austria.

Christa Hauer, Double in Rot, 1963, oil on canvas.