The US American painter Susan Rothenberg (1945–2020) is considered a leading representative of Neo-Expressionism. As a central figure in the male-dominated movement, she laid the foundation for the renewed importance of figurative painting in the early 1980s. Rothenberg combined figurative imagery with intense emotional meaning, leaving a lasting impression on art history.

Susan Rothenberg is best known for her iconic paintings of horses, which became symbols of American painting in the 1970s. These works paved the way from Minimalist Art to a new era of Figurative Expressionism. In 1978, Rothenberg’s horse paintings were included in the legendary New Image Painting exhibition at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art. These works were celebrated as having ushered in a return to figuration and made Rothenberg a pioneer of Neo-Expressionism. In 1982, she was the only female artist — alongside Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, Julian Schnabel, and others — to be included in the Berlin exhibition Zeitgeist, regarded as one of the movement’s pioneering shows.

The exhibition at the Kunsthalle Krems comprises around 37 paintings and works on paper from Rothenberg’s five-decade career. Beginning with her minimalist horse paintings of the 1970s, the show traces the artist’s development to the Neo-Expressionist works of the 1980s and beyond. These are characterized by dynamic, landscape and animal motifs. The works were created on a horse ranch in New Mexico, where Rothenberg lived with her husband, the artist Bruce Naumann. During this time, she focused intensely on the animal world and landscapes of the region. The late work includes paintings of puppets and fragmented human bodies as well as realistic, painterly depictions of animals in which Rothenberg further refined her expression.

The central works in the show are drawn from the Hall Art Foundation, which has the world’s largest collection of Rothenberg’s works. The exhibition also features loans from renowned museums such as the MoMA and the Whitney Museum in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and from important private collections. The Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York, supports the project and the authoritative presentation of Rothenberg’s work.

The exhibition in Krems honors Susan Rothenberg’s groundbreaking role in contemporary art history. The artist’s works not only represent her individual vision, but also the development of Neo-Expressionism and the return to figuration in the art of the 1970s and 1980s. Susan Rothenberg would have celebrated her 80th birthday in 2025. The exhibition is the first comprehensive monographic show of her oeuvre in Austria.

Curator: Florian Steininger