Franz Gertsch
The Seventies

In 2020, internationally acclaimed Swiss artist Franz Gertsch will celebrate his 90th birthday. Rising to the occasion, the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz will put on an exhibition of his monumental paintings focused on the period of Gertsch’s emergence in the international art scene in the 1970s.

Franz Gertsch had his international breakthrough as a Swiss exponent of photo realism at the documenta in Kassel (Germany) in 1972, having discovered the medium of photography as the basis for his work three years previously. Since then, photographs – usually his own – have formed the points of departure for his creative work.

By applying paint with the brush directly on the unprimed canvas, he gives his paintings a vibrant painterly quality which is owed not least to the long creative process.

An exhibition of the Museum Franz Gertsch in collaboration with the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz. 

Overall concept: Angelika Affentranger-Kirchrath for the Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf

Curator Lentos: Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller