Susan Rothenberg: Kunsthalle Krems, Krems an der Donau, Austria

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.