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1932 Innsbruck/Tyrol - 2011 Vienna
- Title
- „Red on Red – Los Angeles“
- Time
- 1968
- signed
- verso: "Markus Prachensky 1968"
- Technique
- acrylic on canvas
- Measurements
- 48×35 in
The so-called „California-paintings“ – paintings from Markus Prachensky early work of the 1960s – are rare and extremely high in demand among collectors. Of these the version „Red on red – Los Angeles“ (with two different shades of red) is much rarer than the variants „Red on white“ or „Red on black“. We are pleased to present you here one of these sought-after paintings.
Markus Prachensky, born in Innsbruck in 1932, studied architecture from 1952 and painting from 1953 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He soon devoted himself exclusively to painting, but was always fascinated by architecture, especially that of antiquity, and often inspired by it to create paintings. In the 1950s Prachensky founded the group of painters around the „Galerie nächst St. Stephan“ with the local art greats Josef Mikl, Arnulf Rainer and Wolfgang Hollegha.
In 1967, at the age of 35, Markus Prachensky moved to Los Angeles and set up a studio in Westwood Village. Inspired by the Californian deserts with their monumental sandstone formations, abraded by erosion, he created his „California-paintings“ in the following years.
The shimmering interplay of two different tones of his „life color“ red and the motif bursting the pictorial space convey the great fascination that the rough beauty of the desert and its monumental rocks bathed in red evening light exerted on Prachensky.