Maria Lassnig (Austrian, 1919–2014) was a painter known for her confrontational self-portraits. Interested in the concept of “body awareness,” her paintings are described as rendering the figure from the inside out, using distorted or exaggerated features to depict her internal sensations and feelings. An artist with a career spanning over 50 years, Lassnig only began to receive international attention when she was well into her 60s.

Born to an unwed mother in Kappel Krappfeld, Austria, Lassnig was mostly raised by her grandmother. She attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and later moved to Paris, where she met members of the avant-garde and was first exposed to Abstract Expressionism. First working in abstraction, Lassnig eventually adopted figuration and went on to paint figuratively for the rest of her life. She moved to New York in the late 1960s, eventually returning to Austria in 1980 to accept the position of professor of painting at the Vienna University of Applied Arts—the first female in any German-speaking country to be awarded the title. She served as chair at the school until 1997.

As Lassnig’s acclaim grew, her work has been exhibited extensively. She was one of the artists to represent her home country at the 1980 Venice Biennale, and her work has been the subject of museum retrospectives at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1995, Museum Ludwig in Cologne in 2009, and, recently, the P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center in Queens 2014. Her work was represented by Hauser & With and Friedrich Petzel Gallery.

She died in Vienna in 2014, at the age of 94.