Modern Art - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 2008 - 55 Euro Cent

Soshana, a Viennese painter who returned to Vienna after more than half a century, led a life as a globetrotter and cosmopolitan. Her experiences on all continents shaped her life and her work. Soshana was born as Susanne Schüller on September 1, 1927 in Vienna. In 1938 she left Vienna with her parents and went to England, where she received training as a fashion illustrator. After two years she emigrated to America and began to paint under the guidance of Bey's Afroyim. From the marriage with her teacher came from a son, whom she later housed with her family in Vienna. Her first major exhibition was presented in 1948 at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Havana under the stage name "Soshana". A year later, she turned her back on America, traveled through Europe, and found an artistic home in Paris for many years. Astonishingly fast, Soshana, as a woman, found recognition and acceptance in the mecca of art, enjoying the esteem of many artists, notably Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso. Both portrayed her several times. Her restlessness and artistic curiosity prompted her to make herself "a picture of the world", and she rekindled her longing for extended travels around the world. Asia, India and Japan left a strong influence on their artistic development. She traveled through Africa, stayed in Mexico, but always came back to Paris and presented her works, which were created in the encounter with the different cultures. Soshana moved to Jerusalem in 1972. The outbreak of the Yom Kippur War prompted her to go to New York, where she moved to her studio for the next ten years. The attachment to the family urged her in 1985 to return to her native city of Vienna and settle here finally. For more than half of her life, Soshana has spent the critical moments of the modern art scene and distant countries. As a Jewess, expelled from Vienna, she obsessively dedicated her life to painting, constantly expanding her artistic horizons on her travels. The remarkable life of the painter Soshana is reflected in the various themes of her many images as well as in the wide range of her artistic styles with which she seeks to convey her visions to us. Oscillating between object-bound watercolors, eruptive, fantastic landscapes, radical abstraction and formal autonomy, Soshana can point to a multifarious oeuvre. Her works have been shown from Tokyo to Paris, from New York to Sao Paulo and are in major public and private collections.