Maria Lassnig(1919-2014)

Austrian painter Maria Lassnig became interested in film during the years she spent in Paris (1960-1968) and later New York City where she was a frequent watcher of movies on television and at such places as Millennium Film Workshop, Anthology Film Archives, and Filmmakers Cooperative. After taking several animation courses she put together a basic studio with a storyboard table to assemble her experimental work and in 1974 she cofounded Women/Artist/Filmmakers , a ten person collective for sharing inspirations, funding, and opportunities for exhibition, though she preferred not to be thought of as a feminist. Her films, some of which were not discovered until after her death ,are often centered on her upbringing, and portraits of movement through dance. Invited back to her native land to become a professor of applied arts at Vienna University, Lassnig temporarily abandoned her filming.