Regine Dapra has two characteristics that are seemingly surprising, almost alienating, and yet in my view contribute to her significance. She was trained and graduated as a concert pianist. When she was certified as a master of the piano, she closed it and began to paint. This is not a detour, but a very sensible path to maturity. To be completely fulfilled in a profession, you have to be more and have more than the external requirements of that profession. You have to have learned what you don't immediately need to practice your profession. You don't necessarily have to have learned what you need for your profession. You just have to be able to do it.

Second characteristic: Regine Dapra does not work „from nature“, as they say. She does not sit in front of churches, gardens or trees and „draw them“. She certainly knows her subject, but she does not depict it. She works in her studio.Regine Dapra must be defended against the cliché term „naive painting“. She is not naïve, she is not even simple. She creates order by creating pictures. We own many precious paintings of the city of Salzburg by Regine Dapra. In doing so, she has rendered an invaluable service to the city of Salzburg.

When we dream of Salzburg, the city looks as if painted by Regine Dapra, beyond the everyday.

„The influence of Mozart in her paintings is unmistakable: the striving for absolute harmony.“

On the occasion of a private party at the Dapras' home in 1979:
Karl Heinrich Waggerl, the poet and friend of the Dapras, once said to Regine: „You learned to paint through music.“ Let me briefly dwell on this relationship between music and painting in Regine Dapra's pictures!
You only need to look at the wall here in this room, or wherever you see Regine Dapra's pictures, to think of music. Her Salzburg pictures transfigure this city, elevating it to a cheerful, aesthetic, playful and yet austere harmony. Who wouldn't think of Mozart?
A trained and, as everyone who has experienced Regine Dapra at the piano knows, first-class musician, paints Salzburg.
The influence of Mozart in her paintings is unmistakable: the striving for absolute harmony. Fortunately, in this unhealed world there are still artists who try to heal it with their work. For many of us, this world is intact in Regine Dapra's paintings. Only the half-educated or the stupid could temporarily turn the term „ideal world“ into an insult for superficial whitewashing. At an exhibition opening, art historian Hermann Bauer spoke about the „Sunday“ in Regine Dapra's painting. „The Sunday is not least the result of the order of things. A Sunday serenity prevails between the city and the viewer, time has come to rest and the past has become a celebration in which we can participate. She paints us, the people of the 20th century, into this city. I know of no more endearing monument preservation than this Sunday, when endearing pictures show us something very essential about Salzburg and at the same time lead us out of Salzburg into an untrodden wonderland.“
An astonishing phenomenon of Regine Dapra's paintings is that it is not really possible to trace the development of her talent as a painter. She was apparently suddenly there and painted as Regine Dapra paints, immediately recognizable among hundreds of other pictures. The original talent for painting, which only needed an occasion to break through, becomes visible here. It also shows how right the poet Herbert Eisenreich was when he wrote in an essay that the painter was „one of those people who carry something within them that could be described as rudiments from a lost paradise“. The working method alone, in which two months or more often pass before a painting is completed, contradicts the superficial labeling of Regine Dapra's paintings as „naive painting“. Anyone who knows her, who has experienced her intellectual commitment in discussions, who has an inkling of the amount of thoughts that are churned around in her and her husband's house, will have difficulty with the idea of a „Salzburg Grandma Moses“. The reality in Regine Dapra's pictures is not naïve, unless we have become so accustomed to the disfigurement of our environment that we fundamentally perceive beauty as naivety. The reality of her pictures is rather a - sometimes even very sophisticated - combination of elements of Salzburg's nature and architecture into an unreal harmony. Herbert Eisenreich is right when he counts the painter „among the dreamwalkers between guilt and innocence“. Seen in this light, Regine Dapra's paintings are much more religious than naïve.

Solo exhibitions:

1964: ABC Gallery, Winterthur/Switzerland

1965: Galerie Autodidakt, Vienna Kulturvereinigung, Salzburg Galerie Schöninger, Munich/BRD

1966: ABC Gallery, Winterthur/Switzerland

1967: E.O.-Gallery, New-York/USA

1968: Oates-Gallery, Memphis/USA Kunstsalon Wolfsberg, Zurich/Switzerland

1969: Gallery Alex Vömel, Düsseldorf/BRD

1970: Oates-Gallery, Memphis/USA (solo exhibitions, continued)

1971: Galerie Holzinger, Munich/BRD Galerie Krüll, Krefeld/BRD

1972: Galerie Niggli, St.Gallen/Switzerland 1972: Galerie Isy Brachot, Brussels/Belgium

1973: Oates Gallery, Memphis/USA

1974: Trakl House, Salzburg Wolfrum Gallery, Vienna

1975: Gallery Niggli, Zurich/Switzerland

1979: Galerie D'Art la Chapelle, Luxembourg

1979: Gallery Theissen, Trier/BRD

1984: Gallery Niederteufen/Switzerland

Participation in exhibitions:

1964: „The World of Naive Painting“, Residenzgalerie, Salzburg „Primitifs d'aujourd'hui“, Galerie Charpentier, Paris

1965: „Naive Painting from Eight European Countries“, Linz and Kapfenberg „Peintres naifs“, Kunstsalon Wolfsberg, Zurich/Switzerland „Austrian and English Painting“, Galerie Peithner-Lichtenfels, Vienna

1966: „Triennale Bratislava“ „The World of Naive Painting, Gal. Krauss-Maffei, Munich/BRD

1967: „Wachau Exhibition“, Weißenkirchen „Naive Painting“, Vienna Art School „The Blue Eagle“, Secession, Vienna

1968: „Contemporary European Paintings“ Oates-Gallery USA

1969: „Naive and Surrealists“, Kunstsalon Wolfsberg, Zurich/Switzerland

1972: „Kunstmesse“ Basel/Switzerland „Schoß Schleißheim Munich/BRD

1973: „Musee D'Art Naif de L'Ile de France, Paris,

1975: „Österr.Künstlerinnen der Gegenwart“, Austrian Cultural Center, Burggarten- Säle, Neue Hofburg, Vienna

1976,1978,1979 „Art Fair“ Basel 1979: „Britains First Exh. of Intern. Naive-Art“, Hamiltons, London „Rona in London's Roundhouse, London

1980: „Messepalast, Vienna

1982: Bawag, Vienna „Groupe Henri Rousseau“, Morges/Switzerland, „Groupe Henri Rousseau“, Quito/Ecuador

1983: „Groupe Henri Rousseau“, Museum Athenee, Geneva/Switzerland „Galerie Niggli“, Niederteufen/Switzerland

1984: „Classical Modern and Naive Art“, Galerie Niggli, Niederteufen/CH

1974 1st prize at the 8th International Tourism Poster Exhibition, Catania/Italy, for 3 posters, painted for the Provincial Tourist Office, Salzburg.

1974 Special prize at the Prix Pro Arte, Morges/Switzerland.

1976 Diploma Prix Pro Arte, Switzerland

1977 1st Graphic Design Prize of Bologna

1984 Silver Medal of Merit of the Province of Salzburg for his complete works.

„My painting soon brought me international success, exhibition after exhibition. The associated travels and contacts with gallery owners, collectors and journalists determined my life.
I sat at the easel for eight hours a day and this working time, which I was used to from my piano studies, flew by. I was happy with the exchange because I had found a medium in which I could express myself in an unmistakable way.“

In my memory and in photos, I see myself as a delicate, almost
transparent child with blonde pageboy hair and dark eyes.
I grew up in an old town house in Salzburg from the 15th century, surrounded by my great-grandfather, grandparents, parents and uncle (on my mother's side) in the narrow, very busy Linzergasse.
On the doorstep, so to speak, was the ascent to the Kapuzinerberg. A mountain that had something eerie and at the same time something magically attractive for a small child. Fairy tales that my father invented for me were interwoven in my childish imagination with reality, which was full of secrets with witches, wizards, giants and gnomes of all kinds.
As darkness fell, I saw all kinds of figures and creatures so clearly that I pointed to where they were.

My father, born in 1904 to a Carinthian family with many children, had a spartan, strict upbringing. He was caught up in the difficult war and post-war times, which prevented him from studying as planned. So he learned the profession of a decorative painter. Throughout his life, painting, literature, philosophy and politics were his passions, which did not remain without influence on me.
Very spoiled by my grandparents (merchants) and often misunderstood by my father, who applied stricter educational methods, I got into disagreements and tensions that caused me lasting problems.
Nevertheless, I was a happy child.
The image of my great-grandfather is associated with the idea of the „old wise man“. He walked tall, healthy into old age, with snow-white hair, silent, an imposing figure.
The extended family was musical. They often made music and sang at home. Going to the theater and concerts with the parents and grandfather was part of the annual routine.
I took piano lessons from the age of six. When I was eleven, I played for the first time in a school concert and my intention to study music and become a pianist was clear. My family agreed, only my grandfather, a businessman who played several instruments, was saddened that his favorite granddaughter wanted to devote herself to the „breadless“ art.

Very early on, I was given a volume of essays by the American philosopher Prentice Mulford.
Mulford's world view was as familiar to me as if I had always known it, as if I had written these texts myself:
„Always carry courage before you like a flame! Call nothing impossible! Hate no individual - only avoid his error. Listen to the secret laws of life and follow their faintest signs!“
I thought everyone could understand that. For example, the power of thought:
„ The mind must always remain focused on the goal, but the body must be as calm and concentrated as possible, then the forces are set in motion. The desired things come to you by virtue of the mysterious attraction of man and thing...... Each is given according to the strength and perseverance of his desire.... There is no boundary line between what we call spirit and matter! Matter is only the form of thought that manifests itself in the outer senses.“

I remember an incident from my time as a music student in Vienna. A gentleman accompanied me up the stairs to a family who were organizing a small concert, where I played Debussy. The next day I received a letter from this gentleman. It didn't mention my recital, but he reported that he had seen a light go out from me as I was walking up the stairs in the twilight.
Back then, it was not common to talk about such events out loud.
Today, we are happy to pass on such perceptions to our friends.

Of course there have been detours and traffic jams in my life. The world is often narrow and dark and the regulator „illness“ set in.
All „gifts“, as I know in hindsight, aids to the next step, to deeper joy and a greater sense of happiness.

In 1960, I married the photographer (Residenz Verlag) and psychologist Dr. Josef Dapra. This ended my musical career and I returned from Germany to Salzburg, ready for new challenges.
Our architect friends Raimund Abraham and Friedrich Gartler designed our house. It was built in the south of Salzburg.
The house that my sister Erika lives in with her lovely family is on the same plot of land, so we have been able to live in close proximity to each other for all these years.

A new phase of my life began, the world of pictures.
The writer Herbert Eisenreich came up with the title „Pictures from Paradise“ for the catalog of my first exhibition.
As an autodidact, I had to overcome many a crisis at the beginning.
I like to remember the comforting words of our dear friend Heinrich Waggerl: „Don't say you can't do it. You learned it in music!“
My career was blessed with „encouragers“. Hans Weigel's opening speech for an exhibition in Vienna began: „When we dream of Salzburg, the city looks as if painted by Regine Dapra, beyond all ordinariness.“

My painting soon brought me international success, exhibition after exhibition. The associated travels and contacts with gallery owners, collectors and journalists determined my life.
I sat at the easel for eight hours a day and this working time, which I was used to from my piano studies, flew by. I was happy with the exchange as I had found a medium in which I could express myself in a unique way.
A major Swiss magazine wrote: "Regine Dapra's nuanced and balanced use of color is almost legendary. With this artist, one can speak of a classical-naïve style in the sense of Rousseau. The press reported something similar in the United States, where I exhibited regularly for more than 10 years.
Success is one of the „highlights“ of life, and I was happy about it.

During this time, our son David was born, who filled our lives with new joys and tasks.
He gifted us with four wonderful grandchildren.

During my training as a Reiki master/teacher and other similar courses, I realized that all learning is just memory. This gentle, harmonizing, healing Reiki energy became a deeply intimate part of my life.
The training on the „New Light Body“ was even more clarifying.
The encounter with the soul and its consciousness became a key experience: I am part of „everything that is“ and „everything“ is part of myself.
Looking back, my path has been a continuous progression, without any hard cuts or crashes, or sudden „enlightenments“. My soul family, like my physical family, was mostly helpful, tangibly around me. They let me take the right step at the right time and strengthened the feeling of security here and in the unimaginable vastness of being.
Regine Dapra, 2008

(Addition by Josef Dapra) In the summer of 1981, the actress Barbara Rütting, with whom Regine Dapra has been friends for years, reports on the silent suffering of laboratory animals. As a woman, it was her duty to protest against this cruelty. Regine immediately joined the anti-animal activists. These activists, most of whom were women, were active and well connected in Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland. Regine Dapra took part in protest marches and rallies in these countries as a speaker, appeared in television discussions and was in constant contact with like-minded Austrian parliamentarians. A bill for the protection of laboratory animals was drafted and passed by parliament. The most significant and urgent contribution to the protection of animals was made by the painter Regine Dapra. In 1982, she created two poignant paintings of hidden animal suffering and silent accusation: „Crimes in Disguise“ and „Silent Night“.

Both paintings were printed and published as posters and cards.
The first picture shows a family, parents with children, resting on a hill in a wide, sunny landscape. They have no idea of the suffering of the animals being tortured under their feet in the darkness of the laboratory. In the second picture, this ignorance is documented by a family standing peacefully and expectantly in front of the Christmas tree. In this painting, the suffering and misery of the laboratory animals is concealed by a colorful carpet. These two paintings are Regine Dapra's legacy for the welfare of animals.

Addendum 2012 (by David Dapra)
My mother's last years were characterized by what she denied herself all her life: time for herself. She allowed herself to slow down and accept her limits.
She died unexpectedly on April 25, 2012 during heart surgery at Salzburg Hospital.
The memory of this extraordinary woman lives on forever in our hearts and in her pictures.