Hans Staudacher was born in 1923 in St. Urban am Ossiacher See. An autodidact, he began drawing and painting at a very young age. In 1950 he moved to Vienna, where he quickly found his feet in the small but active art scene. He joined the Vienna Secession and took part in its exhibitions. His early black-and-grey, small-format works were soon replaced by larger, colourful paintings in which the individual symbolic language of Art Informel is already evident. In 1951 he created his first synthetic resin pictures in the Tachisme style. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Staudacher travelled several times to Paris, where he engaged intensively with lettrism – the relationship between pictures and words – and the work of George Mathieu. From then on, these influences would inform his entire oeuvre.

Staudacher worked with different techniques in painting, graphic arts, collage and print. Abstract, extremely musical paintings, in which spontaneous gestures play a central role, are typical of his work. He incorporates calligraphic characters, symbols and notes, but also paper and cardboard, in collage style.

“Art is not business, but freedom of the soul, freedom of space, freedom of the mind – and it is very important that we retain this,” said Hans Staudacher, whose leitmotif was generosity, in both his personal and professional life.