Greta Freist 1904-1993

Greta Freist was born in 1904 in Weikersdorf in Lower Austria. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna at the class of Rudolf Bacher and Rudolf Jettmar. During her apprenticeship she met Gottfried Goebel, who became her life-in lover and artist colleague. Together with the writer Heimito von Doderer they lived in a studio in the Hartäckerstraße (Hartäckerstreet) in Vienna. This place was a meeting point for other artists and writers like Elias Canetti and Otto Basil. Before the Second World War her works were shown in the exhibitions of the artist’s association Hagenbund. In 1936 she emigrated to Paris, where she was able to exhibit in the Salon d’Automne and the Salon Indépendants. In 1949 Freist started to make abstract paintings, but later on she came back to figurative art. Together with Gottfried Goebel she founded the French section of the artist’s association “Art Club” in Paris. After the Second World War she exhibited some works in the Salon of the Realités Nouvelles in 1954 and 1955. In 1961 the cultural office of Vienna dedicated an exhibition to Greta Freist and as a member of the artist’s association “Der Kreis” (the circle) she showed her paintings also in the exhibitions. In 1991 the Museum of Lower Austria organized a big solo exhibition of Greta Freist.

Greta Freist died in 1993 in Paris.