The so-called Nötscher Kreis refers to four Expressionist painters who never formed an official group of artists, but who made a significant contribution to Austrian Expressionism as a loose group of artist friends. The name derives from the small village of Nötsch in Carinthia's Gail Valley, where the artist friends stayed and exchanged ideas together during the interwar period. The painters of the Nötsch circle did not subscribe to a uniform style. They dealt individually with the plastic effect of color and were interested in traditional pictorial themes, such as human figure representations as nudes or in portraits, still lifes and landscapes.
