455 - Peter Marquant* (born 1954 in Vienna)

Peter Marquant* (born 1954 in Vienna) Sunflower, 1980 oil/paper 88 x 62 cm signed Marquant, dated 80 SCHÄTZPREIS / ESTIMATE € 1200 - 1600 STARTPREIS / STARTING PRICE € 1200 Peter Marquant is an Austrian artist and, since the 1980s, a significant figure in Austrian abstract painting. From 1972 to 1981, he studied under Wolfgang Hollegha and Josef Mikl at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Both teachers played a decisive role in shaping Austrian post-war abstraction: Mikl through expressive, color-intense painting, and Hollegha through open pictorial spaces, dynamic traces of color, and a gestural approach to the painting process. Marquant built upon this foundation but developed a distinctive visual language of his own, defined by experiences of nature, light, and rhythm. His work is shaped by the experience of nature and the intense light of Mallorca. His luminous oil paintings incorporate abstractions of avenues, trees, and plants without being representational depictions. Most of the paintings are untitled, as the abstract quality within them remains more potent than any potential association. Marquant applies paint through movement and introduces forms reminiscent of organic, plant-like structures. In other works, vertical or horizontal fields of color define the composition. Marquant lives and works in Vienna and Mallorca. Within the context of Austrian art after 1945, Gottfried Mairwöger, Markus Prachensky, Hans Staudacher, and Oswald Oberhuber represent various forms of gestural abstraction focused on color and process. Marquant shares with Mairwöger an interest in color fields and the international legacy of Abstract Expressionism. Prachensky’s dynamic traces of color, Staudacher’s sign-like abstractions, and Oberhuber’s experimental openness serve as further points of reference. In contrast, Arnulf Rainer developed overpainting as a radical form of condensation, while Martha Jungwirth and Maria Lassnig cultivated a style of painting rooted in the physical and the subjective. Max Weiler, Herbert Brandl, Hubert Scheibl, Gunter Damisch, and Franz Grabmayr expanded the spectrum of Austrian painting, exploring the interplay of the experience of nature, materiality, gestural energy, and imaginative form. International modernism also offers significant points of comparison. Karel Appel, Pierre Soulages, Hans Hartung, and Georges Mathieu represent European Art Informel and gestural abstraction. Antoni Tàpies and Antonio Saura combined expressive image creation with materiality and figurative undertones, respectively. Joan Miró and Miquel Barceló illustrate diverse Spanish approaches ranging from signs and associations with nature to a free visual language. In the American context, Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis—with their transparent washes of color—and Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman—with their Color Field painting—are key figures. Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Cy Twombly provide further reference points for a style of painting that centers on movement, gesture, signs, and process. PLEASE NOTE: The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights and platform fee. In the case of normal taxation (marked ° at the estimate), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax is added to the sum of the highest bid, the buyer's premium and platform fee. This amounts to 13% for paintings, drawings, graphic works and sculptures and 20% for photographs and all other items. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.