HUNDERTWASSER, FRIEDENSREICH

* 15.12.1928 Vienna, † 19.2.2000 Queensland

Born in 1928 in Vienna as Friedrich Stowasser, even at school Friedensreich Hundertwasser was acknowledged to have an outstanding sense of form and colour. His talent and passion were recognised and fostered early on until the rise of the National Socialists overshadowed everything. Although she was Jewish herself, his mother had Friedrich baptised a Catholic in 1935, and after the annexation of Austria, Hundertwasser joined the Hitler youth. Unlike his grandmother and 69 of his relatives, Hundertwasser and his mother survived the Nazi terror, so that he was able to complete his final examinations in 1948 and became a student at the Viennese Academy of Fine Art, which he left, however, after three months. At this time, in 1949, he took on the name of Hundertwasser, by apparently germanising the first syllable “Sto” (Slavic for “hundred”). In the 1950s Hundertwasser lived in Paris and engaged with the avant-garde of the time in the discourse between geometric and expressive abstraction, Informel and the burgeoning Nouveau Réalisme. In response to this, he formulated his own vision, “Transautomatism”, which was not only a new development in art, but also a new perception that required a viewer who was active, responsible, and involved.

The vegetative-organic principle of nature is as much a leitmotif of Hundertwasser’s creative work as the artistic influences of Egon Schiele, Paul Klee or the Viennese school of Fantastic Realism, which provided the foundation of his early work. In addition, his experiences while travelling to Italy, Paris, Morocco, Tunisia, Sicily, Japan, and New Zealand influenced him and he developed a colour-intensive abstract painting style. The beauty and harmony of his paintings has often earned him more criticism than appreciation.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser died 2000 aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2 off Brisbane.