Gustav Hessing was an austrian expressionist artist from the interwar period. His work was influenced by surrealism, cubism and abstract painting. Hessing was banned from working from 1938 to 1945. From 1967 to 1979 he worked as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. The artist received the City of Vienna Prize for Fine Arts in 1967. In 1979, Hessing had a major retrospective at the Austrian Belvedere Gallery.