Frohner was initially self-taught as a painter, but later attended Herbert Boeckl's "Abendakt” as a guest student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. In 1961 he received a UNESCO scholarship that enabled him to spend time in Paris. There he met the "Nouveau realistes" around Pierre Restany. In 1962, together with Hermann Nitsch and Otto Muehl, he founded Vienna Actionism with the manifesto "Blutorgel", but shortly afterwards turned his back on the action artists, as he did not want to work coram publico. In 1963 Frohner spent a month in Daniel Spoerri's studio. In 1972 he left the Vienna Secession and started a professorship at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. His main pictorial themes are the figure and the nude. Material experience and exploration of space are important elements, but also passions, sexuality and death. Frohner lived and worked mainly in Vienna and Lower Austria.
Literature
Peter E. Allmayer-Beck/Stefan Sares (Hrsg.), Frohner, Malerei oder die gebrochene Leiter, Wien 1993; Malerei in Österreich. 1945-1995. Die Sammlung Essl, München 1996, S. 259; W. Schmid (Hrsg.), Geschichte der bildenden Kunst in Österreich, 20. Jhd., Bd. 6, 2002, S. 573; Dieter Ronte, Elisabeth Voggeneder (Hg.), "Adolf Frohner Malerei, Werkverzeichnis Band 2", Bielefeld/Berlin/Krems 2017