Kiki Kogelnik

Place: Bleiburg

Born: 1935

Death: 1997

Biography:

Kiki Kogelnik (1935–1997) was a painter, sculptor and printmaker. Born in southern Austria, she studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and moved to New York City in 1962. Kogelnik is considered Austria's most important pop-related artist, despite having been known to take issue with being considered part of the pop art movement. Kogelnik began her career at the Galerie Nächst St. Stephan in Vienna in 1961, showing abstract works. At the time she was influenced by Serge Poliakoff of the École de Paris, but later found her own style. In the 1970s Kogelnik's focus shifted to what later became known as her Women works, specifically addressing the female role portrayed in the media. Kiki Kogelnik died of cancer on February 1, 1997, in Vienna. She is buried in Bleiburg, Austria. The Belvedere Museum in Vienna held a large retrospective of her work in the same year. In 1998 Kogelnik was posthumously awarded Austria's highest decoration for services to the country, the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria.