Friedensreich Hundertwasser - the colorful "architecture doctor"

Why is “good mood art” like the perfect everyday therapy Friedensreich Hundertwasser ?

For the average Central or Northern Europeans, there are often reasons to cheer up through colorful and somewhat crazy art. Even in summer there are so many cloudy days in our latitudes that it is helpful to lighten your own mood with a few tricks.

In winter, many people also suffer from the "seasonally dependent depression" , also known as SAD in the medical jargon. This low mood caused by lack of light is usually only temporary and not a real depression disease.

Concept of the enjoyment of art is certainly not a bad choice. Can art really have a positive effect here? Yes, she can definitely. It is undisputed today that art is suitable to positively influence the mood.

Art therapies are successfully used even in the treatment of serious depression diseases If you just suffer from a bad mood, you can also control with simple means. “Non -drug funds” are often sufficient for “normally excited” . Anyone who suffers from Winterblues needs art therapy .

Nevertheless, he will most likely feel better if he deals more with art (this was already examined in 2009 in a study of 50,000 Norwegians who suffered from winter darkness).

Many works that give us this artistic breakfast to us to a rich extent has Hundertwasser . By the way, he did not start under this name, and the development of his name tells us a lot about the artist:

Friedrich Stowasser - Creativity is looking for her way

Friedensreich Hundertwasser is not only one of the most important Austrian artists of the 20th century, but also a real visionary in the field of environmentally friendly architecture. With a work full of colors, organic forms and a deep connection to nature, he has developed an unmistakable artistic language that is both fascinating and inspiring.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser was born on December 15, 1928 in Vienna, his baptismal name was Friedrich Stowasser. His father, Ernst Stowasser, hadn't seen much more from life than a short job as a technical civil servant before he started military service in the First World War at the age of 20. Which he ended with various awards, but also weakened in health in November 1918.

At the end of the 1920s, unemployment came to poor health, Friedrich's mother Elsa was responsible for the small family before the death of his father on December 1929.

The single mother promotes the artistic systems of the silent and sensitive child, Friedrich was enrolled in 1936 to the Vienna Montessori School, whose art teachers attested him "extraordinary sense of shape and color" .

But Elsa was Jew, and she felt the threat before the "connection of Austria". At the decision of the family, the half-year Friedrich (his father had belonged to the Roman Catholic faith) was baptized Catholic, switched to a state school in Vienna, where he was less exposed than at the private school, and even joined the Hitler youth after Austria's joining in 1938.

If Hundertwasser later accused of collaboration with the Nazis because of this hiding place game, these allegations are astonished quite a bit. At least he was able to contribute to the fact that his mother escaped the terror with other close relatives, while about 80 more distant relatives were deported and killed in 1943.

In this way, Friedrich also saved himself through the Nazi era, he remained mentally healthy only because the mother kept the fate of the other relatives away from the little boy as long as possible.

His artistic activity also helped him over this terrible time. In 1948 Friedrich took his Matura at the Vienna Gymnasium Horn and begins his artistic training Vienna Academy of Fine Arts

Fritz Stowasser becomes the world citizen and successful artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Globality can not only be defined as often inhumane outlawing of international corporations, but can also be seen as an artist in the cultures of the world, especially in art, in this sense, hundred water now developed as an artist and world citizen.

At the academy he reaffirms the beginning of his development as an artist by using the Slavic “Sto” (= hundred) in his name to form his artist name Hundertwasser.

Because he quickly felt his studies in Vienna as a one, he set off on his first big journey through Italy in April 1949. There he met other adventurous world citizens, with the French painter René Brô he traveled to Paris in 1950, where the friends created two murals to be preserved to this day.

He visits his second academy, the "Ecole des Beaux Arts" , and cannot gain anything to the academic company, he leaves the Ecole on the first day of the class.

It continued to Morocco and Tunisia in 1951, the pursuit of academic art formation continues to take a back seat when Hundertwasser was asked for the first time the Art Club Vienna

After a short, rather abstract period, he painted his first spiral in 1953 and initially found his style. In the same year he is back in Paris and works in Brôs Studio, but can also exhibit in the Art Club Vienna for the second time, followed by exhibitions in Paris and Milan from 1954 to 1956.

In the summer of 1956 Hundertwasser undertook his first tour of the ship as a sailor, from Sweden to England, in 1957 he bought "La Picaudière" , a farm in Normandy, and published the "Grammar of Seeing" .

In 1958 he married Herta Leitner and publishes his “Veratzenmanifesto against rationalism in architecture” : the first basic statement against the restriction of architecture to functionalism and right angles and the first draft of its alternative building philosophy, in which he postulates the ecological integration into nature and co -design of the residents.

In 1959 he was honored at the Biennale in São Paulo and founded the "Pintorarium" as a universal academy of all creative directions with Ernst Fuchs and Arnulf Rainer. Now Hundertwasser has already achieved such a awareness that he will be appointed as a lecturer to the Hamburg University of Fine Arts, but when he paints an “endless line” to the walls of a studio with Bazon Brock and Herbert Schuldt, this leads to a scandal and at the end of Hundertwasser's lecturer.

In 1960 he was divorced by Herta and exhibited in Paris and publishes the “Benelle campaign” about it, "... how to live independently". During this time, Hundertwasser also works for his contract gallery in Paris and exhibits in Vienna; He learned Italian, English and French on his travels, speaks Arabic, Czech, Russian and Japanese and eagerly uses his miniature box, which he always has with him.

Now Hundertwasser is finally becoming a global citizen who was exhibited and honored in Tokyo in 1961 and married Japanese Yuko Ikewada in 1962 (divorce 1966). The name of Friedensreich also dates from this time, only as a Japanese translation of “Friedrich” in “Friede” and “Reich”, later taken over to the home language.

This year he also paints on a small island in southern Venice and has great success in the Austrian pavilion at the Venice Biennale with his first retrospective, in 1963 he studied the Greek classic on site.

Hundertwasser is now becoming more and more in demand: in 1964 he was on the Documenta (III) in Kassel for the first time, the Kestner-Gesellschaft Hannover organizes a large retrospective (which then celebrates success as a hiking exhibition in Amsterdam and Stockholm, Bern, Hagen and Vienna) and publishes the first overall catalog of his oeuvres. In 1966 “unfortunate love” shot, the first documentary about Hundertwasser from Ferry Radax.

In 1967 Hundertwasser went back to Uganda and in the Sudan, while the hiking exhibition visits galleries in Berlin, Geneva, London and Paris. Hundertwasser considers the first naked speech “for the right to the third skin” in Munich, in 1968 the second neck speech and the reading of his architecture boycott manifest “Los von Loos” , in which he vehemently attacks the Austrian architect Adolf Loos, follows a legendary pioneer of modern architecture.

Hundertwasser then prepares the catalog for a museum exhibition at the University of California and sails with the wooden ship "San Giuseppe T" from Sicily to Venice.

“Rainy Day” in the Werften from Venice , working with Peter Schamoni on the film “Hundredwasser's Rainy Day” , on the graphics folder “Rainy Day” and on other graphics. During this time he also lives on the “rainy day”.

Friedensreich Regenag Hundertwasser conquers the world with the "rainy day"

During the construction period on and on the ship, Hundertwasser designed a poster for the Munich Olympics in 1972 , demonstrating a manifesto on window rights and tree duty on television (“Wish you") for roofing and individual facade design, and it becomes the first European painter whose art is transformed by Japanese masters into woodcuts.

But the ship “Rainy Day” is now ready for the great journey, which the artist then also starts. One day he notices on the ship how much colors shine in the rain, the rainy days were now the best working days for him and thus the days when he is the happiest, the “rainy day” is inserted into the stage name.

In the 1970s, his museum hiking exhibition on the Cape Verde Islands, New Zealand and Australia was shown, he planted through windows at the Triennale di Milano “Baum Tenant”, exhibits in New York and Albertina in Vienna.

With the "Rainy Day" he sails to Israel, Tunis and Cyprus, published the manifesto "Humus Toilette" in Munich, designs a stamp for Austria and initiates a world hiking exhibition that is shown in 27 countries and 43 museums until 1983. A second world hiking exhibition with the graphic work will be shown in 15 countries (over 80 museums and galleries) until 1992.

The "Rainy Day" crosses the Atlantic, sails over the Caribbean in the Pacific and ends up in New Zealand in 1976. In December 1977 Hundertwasser reached Paris and gave a speech to UNESCO, until the winter of 1978 he stayed in the Austrian Waldviertel, then continues to Venice.

There he publishes his peace manifesto and designs the peace flag for the Middle East , with a blue David Stage and Islamic Green Half Moon, which is intended as a symbol of reconciliation between the Jewish and the Arab people.

From there he travels to Senegal as a guest of Senegal, in 1979 to New York, San Francisco and Tahiti and in 1980 to Qatar, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, in between he always returns to New Zealand.

He designs “coin objects” made of copper, gold and silver, which are shaped in the Austrian coin office and which he describes in 1979 as “something like admission money into paradise”. He begins his illustrated book “Ao Tea Roa” about New Zealand, his early ecological manifesto from 1952, which was directed against the “bluff civilization” , is supplemented in 1979 by the manifest “shit culture. The holy shit”, which he himself reads on Lake Zurich.

Permanent works - a jack of allassa leaves us a more colorful world and the experience of a life -affirming art

In the meantime, a few names have been added, the artist is now called a thousand all -mass native rainy day darkly. Thousandsassa, because he obviously thinks he was one himself, darkly colored because he preferred this “extreme concentration, rich color”.

His theory of work, his personal beliefs and his ideas of architecture are also ready and are waiting to be introduced to the world.

Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna

In 1980 Hundertwasser made the first designs for the Hundertwasser House in Vienna , this year the Hundertwasser Day also takes place in Washington DC, the first of a total of 100 trees are planted on the Judiciary Square. Hundertwasser stops in the US Senate and in other places in the city, then in Berlin, Vienna and Oslo, about ecology and ecological architecture and against nuclear power, in 1981 he continues to India, Nepal and New Zealand.

He receives the large Austrian State Prize and the Austrian Nature Conservation Award, keeps further speeches against nuclear power and (false) art as well as lectures on the environment, architecture and art, in 1981 the artist is appointed to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts that he is to lead the master school for painting.

Many wonderfully colorful architectural designs follow, in 1982 the facade of the Rosenthal factory (Selb), the planning for the redesign of the coal wash in the Maximilian colliery in the hamm and tongue beard made of ceramic for the Rupertinum in Salzburg (a tongue is a ceramic surface under the window sill that looks like a large tongue). “architectural doctor” designed the facade of a silo in the Danube port of Krems with its tongue beards.

A high meadow house is being built as a open -air model at the international garden exhibition in Munich. He is working on the construction of the Vienna Hundertwasserhaus itself, which was completed in 1986, in 1987 he designed the “Palais des Beaux Arts” for the Europalia in Brussels, designs the new design for the St. Barbara Church in Bärnbach in Sterish and the Heddernheim daycare center in Frankfurt. In 1988 he took over the design of the Vienna district heating plant in Spittelau and along with his travels in Bärnbach on the church, which will be consecrated in September.

TV reportage: I was there! Visiting the Hundertwasserhaus

Reportage of pupils from the "New School Magdeburg" - the group of students presents the Hundertwasserhaus in Magdeburg. As part of the “I was there” as part of the project “I was -TV reports” of the open channel Magdeburg under the direction of Stefan Rakebrand.

Art House Vienna

At the beginning of the 1990s, further architectural realizations (art house and agip petrol station in Vienna, rest area in Bad Fischau, textile factory in Vorarlberg, residential project “In the Wiesen” in the German Bad Soden and the Winery Napa Valley in California) and architecture projects (design of the place in Carinthia and the Thermendorf in Styrian Blumau as well as In the courtyard of a residential complex in German Plochingen).

While these projects are gradually realized, Hundertwasser repeatedly travels to New Zealand and takes on further orders, e.g. B. the redesign of a part of the University Clinic Graz, two fountain projects (in Zwettl and Linz), in 1994 also two architectural projects for the Budapest city fathers and in 1995 the redesign of a high school in Wittenberg.

The art house is a true masterpiece of the artist. The museum shows an extensive collection of its works and offers an insight into its versatile artistic work, from paintings to prints to architectural models.

The facade of the building is as bold and idiosyncratic as its inner rooms - a real homage to hundred water love for nature and in detail.

The Museum Art Haus Wien, founded in 1991, offers an inspiring art experience. The vision of Hundertwasser of an urban oasis has become a reality here. Based on the artist's philosophy, an existing building, a disused furniture factory from Thonet, was redesigned.

Due to the commitment to sustainable practices in the exhibition area and in the operational business, the cultural institution received the Austrian environmental sign in 2018. Thus, the art house Vienna is the first “green museum” of the country and continues hundred water critical examination of the role of man in the natural cycle.

Green citadel in Magdeburg

In 1997 the architectural projects forest spiral in Darmstadt, Hohe Haine in Dresden, the market hall in Altenrhein, Switzerland and the Mitsui Outlet Park in Osaka, Japan.

In 1998 the Lisbon Metro Hundertwassers Fries “Atlantis” was attached, in 1999 he worked on the “Grünen Citadel” Magdeburg, on the Ronald McDonald-Haus in Essen, at the project planning of the Uelzen train station and builds on the Kawakawa Public toilet in New Zealand.

The green citadel in Magdeburg was opened in 2005 and is one of the last major projects of Hundertwasser. It reflects its philosophy of the "same rights for windows" . Each window in the green citadel should have the right to have its own shape and its own style, which gives the building an unmistakable and lively appearance.

Death and last trip to New Zealand

Hundertwasser is currently busy with architectural projects for Tenerife and Dillingen in the Saar when he dies of heart failure on February 19, 2000 on a ship in the Pacific Ocean. New Zealand forever , where he is buried in his own garden under a tulip tree.

In addition to the architectural work, Hundertwasser continued to design books, stamps and architectural models , made exhibitions, received prizes and honors and gave lectures and lectures, e.g. B probably the first manifesto against gene manipulation from him (1999). Hundertwasser almost designed a Boing, instead of an aircraft, it should only be a Danube ship that today, as a Hundertwasser ship MS Vindobona, places more color on the market (the rainy day was allowed to anchor like its creator permanently, in the Danube at Lower Austrian Tulln).

Hundertwasser art in our online gallery

You can also find works of art from Friedensreich Hundertwasser for purchase in our online gallery. Including his famous work "The Great Way" as a high -quality reproduction. Here is a selection:

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: Artwork "Tropenchinsis", framed

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Cathedral I", framed species print on paper

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Antipode King - King of Antipodes", high -quality reproduction

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: Kunstwerk (906) "domestic cat", framed

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "The third skin", refined reproduction

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Who has Eaten All My Windows", art print on paper

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Wear hats", high -quality reproduction

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Pavilions and Bungalows", solid wood strip

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Green Town", reproduction

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Illegal sand over the Balkans"

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Resurrection of Architecture", art print on chromolux paper

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "The Great Way", artwork as a reproduction

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Blobs Grow in Beloved Gardens"

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Island in the yellow sea"

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "End of the Waters"

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Singing bird on a tree in the city"

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "The Blue Moon", artwork as a reproduction

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Birth of an automobile", reproduction

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "The 30 Day Fax", high -quality reproduction

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "Houses in the snow in the silver rain with a red path", Artprint

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: "The Dingsda grows in the flowerpot"

"Road crossing", limited species print by Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Our literature recommendations for the architecture doctor:

Hundertwasser - for the future

Hundertwasser occurred early on in his life for rethinking in the field of ecology and sustainable building and has also expressed it. This is shown in the book "Hundertwasser for the future" of the Hatje Cantz publishing house. It brings quotes from 50 years of speeches, writings, manifest, letters and public actions by Hundertwasser, repeatedly loosened up by colorful photos of Hundertwasser's architectural works and pictures.

• Editor: Hatje Cantz Verlag; 1. Edition (March 28, 2020)
• Language: German
• Paperback: 144 pages
• ISBN-10: 3775746978
• ISBN-13: 978-3775746977

Hundertwasser Architecture: For a nature and human-friendly building

"A house must be a lively, organic unit that has developed and constantly changing," was one of Friedensreich Hundertwasser's concern for a more natural and human architecture. Success justifies its vision: forested roofs, organic shapes, colorful facades, uneven floors, irregular windows, gold -plated onion towers - Hundertwasser's architecture is unmistakable.

• Editor: Pocket Verlag (March 21, 2018)
• Language: German
• Hardcover: 320 pages
• ISBN-10: 3822885940
• ISBN-13: 978-3822885949

Friedensreich Hundertwasser 1928-2000

This unlimited standard edition consists of the first volume of Taschens Limited Edition Friedensreich Hundertwasser 1928–2000 and offers a comprehensive representation of hundred water work, personality and life with detailed texts by Hundertwasser's long -standing friend Wieland Schmied.

• Editor: bags (August 5, 2014)
• Language: German
• Hardcover: 400 pages
• ISBN-10: 9783836551274
• ISBN-13: 978-3836551274

Hundertwasser: Complete Graphic Work 1951-1976-The graphic work 1951-1976

New edition of the complete exhibition catalog on Hundertwasser's graphic work. As an international bestseller back in the bookstores.

• Editor: Prestel Verlag; Illustrated Edition (January 18, 2020)
• Language: English
• Hardcover: 144 pages
• ISBN-10: 3791387057
• ISBN-13: 978-3791387055

Hundertwasser, Catalogue Raisonné: English edition

This detailed list of works is not a posthumous homage, but a lively heritage. Volume I contains a text by Wieland Schmied, the famous art historian and long -time personal friend of Hundertwasser, with selected paintings, architectural works, projects and manifestos.

Volume II includes its entire painted work that adheres to its exact numbering system. This directory contains everything the Austrian artist has ever created, from stamps to number plates to architecture and applied, visual art. This is a will of his work, as he would have wanted.

Since the artist himself completed the detailed concept, design and the text of the book before his death, this book now taught for him and breathes life into his work.

Limited edition for collectors: only 10,000 copies worldwide.

• Publisher: Pocket Verlag; 1st, Edition (December 1, 2000)
• Language: English, German
• Hardcover: 1392 pages
• ISBN-10: 3822862207
• ISBN-13: 978-3822862209

Further information and online sources to the artist:

If you would like to learn more about this fascinating artists, then we recommend the following online sources for further research and reading:

• Hundertwasser - Official websites: The official website of the non -profit hundred water foundation via Friedensreich Hundertwasser, hundertwasser.com and hundertwasser.de . In addition to general information on biography, work and exhibitions, the Hundertwasser is particularly worth reading.
• Hundertwasser Village - The Village at the Hundertwasserhaus was built in the outside and inside according to the concept and ideas of the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
• Kunsthaus Vienna . Museum Hundertwasser - The Kunsthaus Vienna leads with a unique cross -section through the creative work of the artist and is only a 5 -minute walk from the house and Village in Vienna.
• Friedensreich Hundertwasser on Artnet - the contact point for art dealers and collectors. The largest collection of works in German -speaking countries. Extensive information about biography, exhibitions, news and events around the artist.

Joachim Rodriguez y Romero

Owner and managing director of Kunstplaza. Publicist, editor and passionate blogger in the field of art, design and creativity since 2011. Successful conclusion in web design as part of a university degree (2008). Further development of creativity techniques through courses in free drawing, expression painting and theatre/acting. Profound knowledge of the art market through many years of journalistic research and numerous collaborations with actors/institutions from art and culture.

www.kunstplaza.de/