The landscape, portrait and still-life painter and graphic artist Gustav Hessing was born on 20 January 1909 in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was from a family of officers and landowners. From 1926 to 1931 he studied at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna with Ferdinand Andri and Karl Fahringer. He started out working as a freelance artist until the Nazis debarred him from practising his profession. In 1946 he was co-founder and first president of the artist group Der Kreis (The Circle). In 1957 he was extraordinary professor in charge of the master-class at the Academy in Vienna. Hessing was a member of the Vienna Secession from 1958 to 1960 and in 1969. In 1967 he was awarded the City of Vienna Prize and from the 1950s onwards participated in international exhibitions, for example at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh and University House in New York. He also took part in exhibitions in Lugano, Rome and Ljubljana. In 1955 he exhibited at Künstlerhaus and in 1959 at the Vienna Secession and he also contributed to the VIII Biennale in Sao Paulo. In 1975 Hessing’s monograph was published with contributions by Josef Krenstetter and Alfred Sammer. The Österreichische Galerie presented his works in an exhibition in 1979. Gustav Hessing died on 8 January 1981 in Vienna.