Jean Egger
Revolutionary of Modern Painting

Born Hans Egger (1897 – 1934), the Carinthian painter studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. During a painting sojourn in Sicily, his pictures developed a heightened expressiveness. In Paris, where he lived from 1924, Egger began to sign his portraits of prominent personalities Jean Egger. The French press lauded the bold brushstrokes of his landscapes and of the portraits of his partner Signe Wallin. In 1930, this exceptional artist was at the peak of his career having had an outstandingly well-received solo exhibition in Paris. He spent the last two years of his life, afflicted by a serious illness, on Mallorca where Joan Miró visited him several times. The liberation of colour and the radical dissolution of form in his paintings make him one of the most significant Austrian painters of the interwar period.

The exhibition at the Lentos Kunstmuseum demonstrates the breathtaking modernity of this painter, whose works anticipated the art of the post-war years as early as the 1920s and 1930s.

An exhibition of the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz in cooperation with the Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten.

Curator: Brigitte Reutner-Doneus