In 1968, at the age of 49, the Austrian painter Maria Lassnig moved from Paris to New York City to be in, as she called it, “the country of strong women.” She lived there for the next 12 years in relative anonymity—being relatively unknown stateside—renting walk-ups in the Lower East Side and SoHo. She loved New York’s constant activity, dynamism and the sense of freedom it engendered; it felt liberating compared to the male-dominated art scene of Europe. Lassnig’s New York years were an incredibly formative time for her, a period in which she further developed her singular “body sensation” or “body awareness” aesthetic. “Woman Power: Maria Lassnig in New York 1968–1980,” is a recent exhibit at the Petzel Gallery, in New York, of oil paintings, watercolors, drawings and animated films that Lassnig created during those twelve self-actualizing years. PROVOKR here provides a look at the eight works in oil from the show.
