Tina Blau who, as a woman, was denied admittance into the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, worked as a landscape artist under August Schaeffer. In 1867 she participated in the exhibitions of the Austrian Art Association and contributed one canvas to the opening exhibition of the Vienna Künstlerhaus. Later she went to Munich, where she spent the following five years. The 1869 exhibition in the Glaspalast which showed works by the painters of the Barbizon school left a lasting impression on Blau. During a visit to Vienna she met a group of young painters who were all students of Albert Zimmermann, among them Emil Jakob Schindler, with whom she forged a close friendship that lasted several years. In 1873 she went to Szolnok in Hungary for the first time and created various canvases reminiscent in their painterly approach of Pettenkofen (the artist credited with discovering Szolnok’s beautiful scenery). In 1874 she returned to Vienna where she shared a workshop with her friend, Austrian Atmospheric Impressionist painter Emil Jakob Schindler. They embarked on a number of study trips together, taking them, among other destinations, to Holland in 1875. Schindler’s marriage in 1879 marked the beginning of a new era in her life. She rented a studio in the Vienna Prater and in 1883 married the German animal painter Heinrich Lang. She spent the following decade in Munich but returned to work in Vienna every summer. A number of awards and exhibitions, as well as her role as a teacher at the German association of female artists in Munich, are all testament to her success. In the 1890s she painted in Vienna, Dürnstein, Tyrol and Styria and travelled to Switzerland, Holland and Italy. Tina Blau wanted to convey reality. She was less intent on capturing atmospheres and sentiments, but rather wanted to depict the reality of what she saw. During the 1870s her palette became visibly lighter and she increasingly used purer colours. With her canvases, Tina Blau created a new vision, her own unique way of looking at nature.
Literature
A. Roser-De Palmer, Die Landschaftsmalerin Tina Blau, Phil.Diss., Wien 1971; Tina Blau.1845-1916. Eine Wiener Malerin, Österreichische Galerie, Oberes Belvedere, Wien 1971; H.Giese, Tina Blau. Reine Farbe klares Licht, in: Parnass, Wien 1993, Heft 4, S.36ff; Pleinair. Die Landschaftsmalerin Tina Blau. 1845-1916, Jüdisches Museum, Wien 1996, mit Lit.; Nachschlagewerke: Thieme-Becker, Vollmer