Rita Ackermann was born in Budapest in 1968. She studied at the University of Fine Arts Budapest from 1989 to 1992, where she trained under painter Károly Klimó. In 1992, she moved to New York and continued her studies at The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. Upon her arrival, she changed her surname from Bakos to Ackermann, her grandmother’s maiden name.

Ackermann is known for her expressive abstract paintings that often incorporate fragmented human forms. Her work navigates themes of anthropomorphism and femininity, frequently depicting women in dreamlike scenarios that reference fairy tales and adolescent disaffection. Her signature style, marked by loose, gestural brushwork and layered imagery, combines emotional immediacy with cultural critique.

Washing Dishes Helps in the Metabolism is an early and vivid example of Ackermann’s ability to riff on both art history and pop-culture. In this painting, she appears to quote Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère from 1880 with a familiar aesthetic of a 1980s Dawn dish detergent commercial.

The result is a visual fusion of canonical art and quotidian kitsch—emblematic of the kind of cultural sampling typical for the time. Yet Ackermann’s approach remains distinct: her merging of Eastern European sensibility with the visual language of the Western iconic canon gives her work a singular voice that continues to resonate three decades later.

The painting was featured in BAKOS, Ackermann’s first major survey exhibition held at the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest in 2011.