“Spring in the Prater”

• Year: 1882

Tina Blau (1845-1916) was an important Austrian landscape painter. Her art represents Stimmungsimpressionismus (Austrian Mood Impressionism). Throughout her career, she remained faithful to her painting style and was not interested in the Art Nouveau movement that was prevalent at the time. 

Spring in the Prater is Blau’s masterpiece and the artist’s largest painting. It features people in the large public park in Vienna called Prater.  Initially the jury of the 1st International Art Exhibition of the Wiener Künstlerhaus in 1882 wanted to reject the picture, as the judging committee saw it as too bright. The following year, on the initiative of the French Minister of Fine Arts, Antonin Proust, it was exhibited in the Paris Salon, where it received an “honorable mention.”