(born in Vienna in 1938)
Action painting, verso signed, dated hermann nitsch 1983 Prinzendorf, oil, dispersion on burlap stretched on a wooden frame, 200 x 300 cm, (K)

Exhibited:
Hermann Nitsch: Das Orgien Mysterien Theater, Lelong Gallery, Zurich 2008

Provenance:
Lelong Gallery, Zurich
Label on the reverse with a description of the painting in handwriting
Private Ownership, England

See:
Hermann Nitsch, Das Gesamtwerk des Orgien Mysterien Theaters, published by Buchhandlung Walther König, 2015, page 554/555

precisely at the time that I introduced creating with reality itself in my theatre project, I came into contact with tachism, which at that time was just exceeding its heyday. I comprehended this phenomenon, and all its consequences, immediately, since it corresponded with my results achieved through language, and complied with the dramatic dynamic message. I therefore attempted to engage in the spilling, the spraying, the splashing of liquids more intensively and more analytically. the painterliness of the o. m. theatre developed out of this, an action painting which had a dramatic function by claiming a period of time, via the sometimes ecstatic processes of production (I spilled exclusively red colour on vertical surfaces and on horizontal surfaces). I understood this painting, to which the audience were also drawn, as something like a litany, a play-event which expressed itself through showpainting within the context of my theatre. my action painting is the visual grammar of my action theatre on a pictorial surface.
Hermann Nitsch, aktionsmalerei 1964, from the aforementioned