(Innsbruck 1932–2011 Vienna)
‘Etruria-14–1980’, signed, dated Prachensky 80 and on the reverse signed, dated Markus Prachensky 1980 and titled, acrylic on canvas, 175 x 130 cm, framed, (K)

Provenance:
Galerie Ulysses, Vienna (label on the reverse)
From an Austrian Collection

…the dogmatisation of colour has always been a stumbling block for the object. Prachensky sacrified almost everything he gathered by way of impressions on his annual trips to Italy, the Far East, the USA or Egypt, to the experience of colour, their undamped impact and the dynamism of their relationships. Only basic architectural patterns occasionally hint at things seen in the past. It is a ‘harmony parallel to nature’, as Cézanne had understood painting, rather than the imitation of nature. In the past 25 years Prachensky heightened the tension between the simplicity of forms and the complex impact of colour. Although the artist largely rejected the materialisation of colour – working with a palette knife is as foreign to him as the impasto application of colour – Prachensky never denied the skill of the artist’s hand. Indeed, it is precisely the relationship between the severe and clear architecture of the blocks of colour, the beams, trapezoids, rings and ladders on the one hand, and the expressivity of the brushstrokes on the other, which characterise Prachensky’s mature works of the past twenty-five years…

Klaus Albrecht Schröder, from Markus Prachensky, die Akademiejahre, Vienna 2000