30th ARTfair Innsbruck presents Bettina Heinen-Ayech

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, ARTfair will present a special exhibition featuring the work of Bettina Heinen-Ayech at the Olympiaworld Innsbruck from October 23–25, 2026. The renowned “plein air” painter and watercolourist from Solingen, whose impressive life's work will once again take centre stage in the international art world.

Bettina Heinen-Ayech (1937–2020) was born in the “Black House”, one of the houses in the Solingen Artists’ Colony, where she also grew up. The daughter of journalist and poet Hanns Heinen (1895–1961) and Erna Heinen-Steinhoff (1898–1969), she spent her childhood there. It was there that she met her most important teacher and mentor, the painter Erwin Bowien (1899–1972). Alongside him, and later with Amud Uwe Millies (1932–2008), she formed the core of the Solingen Artists’ Colony. Following extensive travel and life-changing experiences throughout Europe, she settled in Guelma, a small town in the Atlas Mountains in eastern Algeria, in February 1963. This was the homeland of her Algerian husband. During her sixty-year creative career in Algeria, she became a legend and was known throughout the country as “Madame Bettina”. Until her death, Algeria and Solingen were the centres of her life.

Passionately and spontaneously, she painted what she saw, treating herself and her subjects with great honesty. She developed a distinctive post-Impressionist artistic style, incorporating expressive elements, which rightfully occupies its own place in the art world. Until her death in 2020, she divided her time between Algeria and Solingen. Bettina Heinen-Ayech leaves behind a magnificent and diverse body of work. It is the life’s work of an emancipated woman and a great artist who moved between two worlds.

Following 90 major solo exhibitions in museums and leading cultural institutions across Europe and North Africa, this is the artist’s first comprehensive solo exhibition to be held as part of a major international art fair. On display are selected works from her estate, including some that are rarely exhibited and others that have never before been shown in public. The internationally renowned art fair is thus making a statement to mark its 30th anniversary.

You can find information about ARTfair Innsbruck at here. You can find out more about the artist Bettina Heinen-Ayech and the Bettina Heinen Ayech Foundation at here.