Rudolf Hausner

When I was but a teen lass, I was in absolute awe of Mark Romanek’s video for Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer.”  Still am.  The image that always pops out at me when I watch it is that of the nude woman spinning eggs on her fingers, and I’ve often wondered how Romanek came up with such a potent idea.  I think this Rudolf Hausner painting solves the mystery.

Schule des Wiener Phantastischen Realismus

A major Austrian painter and printmaker, Rudolf Hausner studied art at the Academy in Vienna from 1931 to 1936, under Fahringer and Sterrer. Many of his early paintings were confiscated and branded as ‘degenerate’ by the ruling Nazi party in 1938. In 1941 Hausner was drafted by the German army and remained a soldier until the war’s end in 1945…