The great blooming

Mariloise Jordan's watercolours show plants or plant communities from the artist's immediate environment, the mountain world of the Hohe Tauern. She reproduces the plant species she paints so precisely that they can easily be scientifically identified. Thanks to this precision, Jordan even achieved a botanical sensation: the only documentation of the Pyrenean dragon's mouth from this region comes from one of her drawings.

Botanist Helmut Wittmann has provided expert commentary on Jordan's work for the current special exhibition "The Great Blooming". Distribution maps and short descriptive texts complement the artist's watercolours. A handicraft table for children invites them to engage creatively with the theme themselves.

Jordan began working as an independent painter in 1951 at the age of 18. She learned the technique of painting on silk, in oil, watercolour, tempora and with coloured pencils autodidactically. In October 1962, the now 90-year-old artist was admitted to the Professional Association of Austrian Fine Artists. In 1968 she exhibited her work for the first time in the Haus der Natur, and the current special exhibition "The Great Blooming" is already her third collaboration with our museum.

In addition to watercolour painting, Mariloise Jordan is also interested in the meaning of old symbols and customs. Thus, among other things, she devotes herself to the design of flags, peasant furniture or wedding pictures, the revival of the Fusch traditional costume as well as the decoration of eggs and painting on cobwebs.