The painter, draughtsman and graphic artist Erwin Bohatsch is one of the most important pioneers of abstract painting in Austria. Born in Mürzzuschlag in 1957, Bohatsch attended the Graz School of Applied Arts from 1966 to 1970 under Otto Brunner, then studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts under Walter Eckert from 1971 to 1975. Since the 1980s his works have also received international recognition. In 1983 Erwin Bohatsch received the Otto Mühl Prize and the following year a DAAD scholarship for a one-year working stay in Berlin. From 2005 to 2020, Bohatsch held a professorship for abstract painting at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. In 2016, the Albertina dedicated a large solo exhibition to him, which showed an overview of his work over the past forty years. Works by the artist are in the following institutional collections, among others: Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; Kunsthaus Bregenz; Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz; Sammlung Essl; Museum der Moderne Salzburg. In his paintings Bohatsch combines figuration and abstraction, colour and non-colour as well as line and surface. He lives and works in Vienna and in Beistein near Fehring.