Josef Winkler (1925–2025) was an Austrian painter of the postwar modernist period whose work is closely intertwined with the movements of Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism. Building on a classical artistic education, he developed an independent visual language early on that broke away from purely representational depiction and elevated the material itself to a vehicle of meaning.

Winkler’s painting is characterized by a powerful, relief-like application of paint (impasto). Using a palette knife and brush, he layered thick crusts of paint onto the canvas, creating a tactile three-dimensionality and a vibrant surface tension. His palette often shifts between earthy, muted tones and deliberately placed, luminous color contrasts, which lend the works an inner dynamism.

In his thematic cycles, Winkler explored fundamental tensions between structure and gesture, stillness and movement, and space and matter. Today, his work is regarded as a remarkable contribution to Austrian abstraction in the second half of the 20th century.