Hubert Schmalix

1952 Graz / Austria

Hubert Schmalix was born in Graz in 1952. From 1971 to 1976 he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under Maximilian Melcher. His early works are characterized by intense colors and expressive brushstrokes. After a long stay in the Philippines, the female nude found its way into Schmalix's work as a dominant motif. In the 1980s, together with Siegfried Anzinger, Erwin Bohatsch and Alois Mosbacher, he became known as one of the most important representatives of “New Painting” or the “New Wild Ones”. The artist was able to achieve international success for the first time through his participation in the Venice Biennale in 1980. Over the years, Schmalix's work changed from expressive and wild to calm and naive. In 1987 he moved his life to Los Angeles. Hubert Schmalix's pictures from the last few years have a restrained color scheme. In addition to the female nude, the artist increasingly devotes himself to landscapes and floral still lifes. His landscapes in particular are characterized by their depiction of idyllic, deserted places and form counterparts to the urban geometry in the depictions of his adopted home of Los Angeles. The essential elements of his painting, the monochrome surface and the contour line, are brought into tension by occasional breaks, so that they appear both lively and clear. In 1997, Hubert Schmalix was appointed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts.