Martha Jungwirth
Martha Jungwirth is an Austrian artist associated with Modern and Contemporary Art, widely recognized for a painterly practice grounded in gesture, intuition and material immediacy. Her artworks, often executed on paper using watercolor, ink and oil, explore abstraction as a physical and sensory process rather than a formal system. Jungwirth’s work balances spontaneity with precision, allowing color, rhythm and mark-making to carry emotional and corporeal presence. Her paintings function as direct records of bodily movement, where marks are irreversible, and all traces of the process remain visible.
Her paintings and drawings frequently hover between abstraction and figuration, where bodily movement and memory inform composition without resolving into fixed imagery. The fluidity of her materials plays a central role, with washes of color, layered strokes and open surfaces creating a sense of immediacy. This approach situates Jungwirth within a lineage of informal and gestural abstraction while maintaining a highly individual visual language.
Martha Jungwirth biography and artistic context
Martha Jungwirth was born in 1940 in Vienna, Austria. She studied at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and became associated with the Austrian avant-garde during the 1960s and 1970s. She was a co-founder and the only female member of the Viennese collective Wirklichkeiten, which exhibited together between 1968 and 1972. Early in her career, she developed a practice rooted in drawing and works on paper, positioning spontaneity and physical engagement as central to her approach to painting.
Throughout her career, Jungwirth has drawn inspiration from travel, literature and art history. Her sketchbooks and works on paper often reflect impressions gathered from specific places, translated into abstract compositions that retain a sense of movement and atmosphere. She has also engaged in sustained dialogues with historical painting, notably through works inspired by Francisco Goya and reinterpretations of Las Meninas, where reference functions as a point of departure rather than quotation.
Jungwirth has exhibited extensively at major international institutions, including documenta 6 in Kassel, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Albertina Museum and participation in the Venice Biennale. In recent years, her work has received renewed attention through exhibitions at institutions and galleries such as Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, contributing to broader recognition of her role within post-war and contemporary Austrian painting.
Notable artworks and series by Martha Jungwirth
Abstract watercolors and works on paper - Paintings characterised by fluid washes, rhythmic brushwork and expressive chromatic fields.
Oil and watercolor works - Artworks combining different media to emphasize texture, transparency and bodily gesture.
Goya-inspired series - Works responding to Francisco Goya’s imagery, reinterpreted through abstraction and painterly intuition.
Las Meninas reinterpretations - Paintings engaging with Velázquez’s composition as a structural and conceptual reference.
Travel-based sketchbooks - Works reflecting Jungwirth’s process of translating movement, place and memory into abstract form.
Collector Interest & Market Relevance
Martha Jungwirth is an Austrian artist associated with Modern and Contemporary Art, widely recognized for a painterly practice grounded in gesture, intuition and material immediacy. Her artworks, often executed on paper using watercolor, ink and oil, explore abstraction as a physical and sensory process rather than a formal system. Jungwirth’s work balances spontaneity with precision, allowing color, rhythm and mark-making to carry emotional and corporeal presence. Her paintings function as direct records of bodily movement, where marks are irreversible, and all traces of the process remain visible.
Her paintings and drawings frequently hover between abstraction and figuration, where bodily movement and memory inform composition without resolving into fixed imagery. The fluidity of her materials plays a central role, with washes of color, layered strokes and open surfaces creating a sense of immediacy. This approach situates Jungwirth within a lineage of informal and gestural abstraction while maintaining a highly individual visual language.
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