Rudolf Korunka studied painting and graphic design under the professors Franz Cižek, Viktor Schufinsky, Albert Paris Gütersloh and Paul Kirnig at the School of Applied Arts of the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry in Vienna from 1932 to 1938. During the Second World War, he was employed as a soldier and ended up in Russian captivity. His experiences during the war affected him deeply and are reflected in the returning motifs of dolls with broken limbs and mutilated bodies. Following the war, he returned to his alma mater, now renamed the University of Applied Arts Vienna, to teach. His oeuvre also consists of landscape painting, watercolours and commercial posters.