Long before feminist body art became fashionable, Maria Lassnig developed her body-awareness paintings, in which she freely expresses her bodily perceptions on canvas, unbound by taboos. She is considered one of the most important female painters of our time. After 1945, she is first confronted with modernity and finds her place in Paris, alongside the ten years younger Arnulf Rainer, connecting with the international art scene. From then on, she is always part of the avant-garde. In 1968, she moves to New York and, together with Louise Bourgeois, becomes involved in the burgeoning women's movement there. Back in Vienna, she becomes the first woman to hold a professorship in painting and creates a sensation internationally with numerous solo exhibitions, from the Venice Biennale to Documenta and MoMA in New York. Natalie Lettner tells the story of more than nine decades in this excellently researched biography with refreshing liveliness.