Friedensreich
Hundertwasser, Austrian (1928 - 2000)
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1928 Born in Vienna on December 15th as
Friedrich Stowasser.
1929 Death of his father, technical civil servant and officer
in World War I.
1934 First juvenile drawings.
1943 First deliberate crayon drawings after nature. During this
year, about 69 Jewish relations on his mother's side are deported
and killed.
1948 School-leaving certificate. Spends three months at the
Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, under Prof. Robin Christian Andersen.
Lastingly influenced by a Walter Kampmann exhibition in the
Albertina and by Schiele exhibitions.
1949 Start of extensive travelling: North Italy, Tuscany, Rome,
Napels, Sicily. In Florence he meets René Brô and
follows him to Paris. Develops his own style and adopts the
name Hundertwasser.
1950 Stays in Paris with Brô and the Dumage family. Leaves
the Ecole des Beaux Arts on his first day. Paints two murals
together with Brô in Saint Mandé.
1952 First exhibition at the Art Club of Vienna. Brief decorative-abstract
period.
1953 Paints his first spiral. Second stay in Paris. Works in
Brô's studio, St.Maurice. Second Art Club exhibition,
Vienna.
1954 First exhibition in Paris at Studio Paul Facchetti. Develops
the theory of "transautomatism" and begins to number
his works.
1958 Marries in Gibraltar (divorced 1960). Reads his Mould Manifesto
against Rationalism in Architecture on the occasion of a congress
at Seckau monastery.
1959 Receives the Sanbra Prize at the 5th Sao Paolo Biennial.
Founds the "Pintorarium", a universal academy of all
creative fields, together with Ernst Fuchs and Arnulf Rainer.
As guest lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg, he
draws the Endless Line with Bazon Brock and Harald Schult. Resigns
lectureship following scandal.
1960 Visits Japan. Receives the Mainichi Prize at the 6th International
Art Exhibition, Tokyo. Very successful exhibiton in Tokyo. Paints
in Hokkaido and returns to Vienna via Siberia.
1961 Marries Yuko Ikewada (divorced 1966).Very successful retrospective
at the Venice Biennial.
1966 Unhappy in love. Ferry Radax films the first domentary
on Hundertwasser in "La Picaudière" and in
the Austria Waldviertel region (Lower Austria).
1967 Travels to Uganda and the Sudan. Touring exhibition in
galleries in Paris, London, Geneva, Berlin. Nude demonstration
for The Right to a Third Skin in Munich.
1968 Second Nude speech and reading of architecture boycott
manifesto Los von Loos (Loose from Loos) in Vienna. Travels
to California to prepare a cataloge for a museum exhibition
at the University of California, Berkeley, (organized by Herschel
Chipp). Sails from Sicily to Venice in the "San Giuseppe
T", an old wooden sailing ship. Converts the ship into
the "Regentag" in dockyards in the Venice lagoon.
1971 Works on the Olympia poster for Munich in Lengmoos.
1972 Collaboration with Peter Schamoni on the film Hundertwasser
Regentag. Works on the Regentag print portfolio at the Dietz
printshop in Lengmoos, Bavaria.Friendship with Joram Harel.
On the TV show "Wünsch Dir was" (Make a wish)
demonstrates roof forestation and individual facade design.
Publishes manifesto Your window right - your tree duty. The
Regentag film is shown in Cannes. Sails around Italy to Elba
in the "Regentag". Death of his mother.
1973 First portfolio with Japanese woodcuts: Nana Hiaku Mizu.
Hundertwasser is the first European painter to have his works
cut by Japanese masters. Takes part in the Triennale di Milano,
where 12 Tree Tenants are planted in windows on the Via Manzoni
1975 Publishes manifesto Humus Toilet in Munich. Designs postage
stamp for Austria: Spiral Tree, engraved by Wolfgang Seidel,
the first in a series "Modern Art in Austria". The
world travelling exhibition tour Austria presents Hundertwasser
to the Continents (with catalogue) begins in the Musée
d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Continued: Luxembourg, Marseille,
Cairo. The Albertina exhibition of his entire graphic oeuvre
begins a tour through the USA: New York, Boston.
1976 World touring exhibition: Tel Aviv, Warsaw, Reykjavik,
Copenhagen, Dakar. Albertina graphic tour in the USA: Hanover,
Brooklyn, Maryland.
1978 Designs the Peace Flag for the Near East with a green Arab
crescent moon and blue Star of David against a white background
and publishes his Peace Manifesto. World touring exhibition:
Mexico City, Montreal, Toronto, Brussels, Budapest. Albertina
graphic tour: Canada, Germany, Morocco.
1979 Peace Flag and Peace Manifesto are sent by Austrian Chancellor
Bruno Kreisky to heads of state in the Near East. The Austrian
State Printing Office prints three stamps for the Republic of
Senegal and one for the Republic of the Cape Verde Islands,
engraved by Wolfgang Seidel.
1980 "Hundertwasser Day" in Washington, D.C. on November
18th, proclaimed by Mayor Marion Barry. Jr. Planting of the
first 12 of 100 trees on Judiciary Square, Washington, D.C.;
presentation of the anti-nuclear poster Plant Trees Avert Nuclear
Peril to Ralph Nader's Critical Mass Energy Project, Washington,
D.C. along with the environmental poster Arche Noah 2000 for
Germany. Speaks on ecology, against nuclear power and for an
architecture befitting man and nature in the US Senate, the
Corcoran Museum, the Phillips Collection, all in Washington;
in Berlin on the occasion of the 2nd European Ecology Symposium,
at the Technological Universities in Vienna and Oslo.
1981 Speech in Vienna on False Art against nuclear energy and
negative avantgarde in modern art on the occasion of receiving
the Grand Austrian State Prize on 14 February (awarded 1980).
Austrian Nature Conservation Prize. Appointed head of a Master
School for painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Writes
Guidelines for the Hundertwasser Master School.
1982 As "architecture doctor", redesigns the facade
of the Rosenthal Factory of Selb. Makes ceramic tongue-beards
for the facade of the Museum Rupertinum, Salzburg .Donates poster
Artists for Peace to the Krefeld Initiative. "Hundertwasser
Week" in San Francisco, proclaimed by Dianne Feinstein,
Mayor of San Francisco, to mark the presentation of the two
posters Save the Whales and Save the Seas to Greenpeace and
Jacques Cousteau Society. Presentation of the poster You are
a Guest of Nature to the Centre of Environmental Education,
Washington D.C.
1983 Edition of six postage stamps for the United Nations (2
each for New York, Geneva and Vienna), engraved by Wolfgang
Seidel. Cornerstone of the Hundertwasser House is laid in Vienna.
Designs a flag for New Zealand, the Koru, an Unfurled Fern.
1984 Receives the gold medal for the most beautiful postage
stamp from Italy's President Sandro Pertini, for the 1,20 sFr
stamp for the UN in Geneva. Takes an active part in the campaign
to save Hainburg wetlands. Camps there for a week. Designs the
poster Hainburg - Die freie Natur ist unsere Freiheit (Free
Nature is Our Freedom).
1986 On 17 February the Hundertwasser House is is turned over
to the tenants; 70,000 visitors have attended the "Open
House". 1,000 green Koru-flags flow in New Zealand; great
interest on the part of the population, press and parliament.
Designs Uluru - Down Under Flag for Australia. Work on the design
of the Brockhaus encyclopaedia, continuing into the next year.
1987 Cept Europalia 1987, a stamp depicting the Hundertwasser-House,
appears in March in Austria. Designs the Luna-Luna poster for
André Heller. Designs the poster and redisigns the Palais
des Beaux Arts in Brussels for Europalia. Drafts a new design
for the Church of St. Barbara in Bärnbach, Styria, and
plans a Children's Day-care Centre in Heddernheim, Frankfurt.
1988 At the invitation of the Mayor of Vienna, Helmut Zilk,
he takes on the task of redesigning Vienna's Spittelau District
Heating Plant. Teaches at the International Summer-Academy in
Salzburg (Human Architecture in Harmony with Nature with Efthymios
Warlamis and Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt. Awarded the Golden
Medal of Honour of the City of Vienna and the Golden Medal of
Honour of the State of Styria.
1989 Builds his Hügelwiesenland In the Meadow Hills (Rolling
Hills) model.
1990 Work on architectural realisations: KunstHausWien; Motorway-Restaurant
Bad Fischau; AGIP Service Station Vienna; HBW Incinerator Spittelau
Vienna; In the Meadows, Bad Soden, Germany; Village Shopping
Mall, Vienna; Textile Factory Muntlix, Vorarlberg; Winery Napa
Valley, California.
1991 Completion of KunstHausWien, opening on April, 9. Concept
and development of architectural projects: the Thermal Village
Blumau, Styria, for Rogner Austria, which is based on Hundertwasser's
Rolling Hills. Town planning for Griffen, Carinthia, Austria.
Housing comples Living beneath the Rain Tower in Plochingen,
Germany. Presentation of the Hundertwasser Art Jeton designed
for Casino Austria.
1992 Designs 4 telephone cards for the Austrian Postal Service
and a postage stamp commemorating the European Council Summit
in Vienna 1993. In Tokyo Hundertwasser's 21st Century Clock
Monument is installed. The Tokyo Braodcasting System broadcasts
a TV documentary on Hundertwasser's architecture and his ecological
commitment.
1993 Work on the Hundertwasser-Bible project.
1994 Involvement in the campaign opposing Austria's joining
the European Union.
1995 Works on Blumau Hot Springs Village. Redesign of Martin-Luther-Grammar
School in Wittenberg, Germany. Design for the exterior of a
Boeing B 757 for the German Condor airline, rejected.
1996 Unveiling of the Danube ship, MS Vindobona, redesigned
by Hundertwasser. Awarded the Tourism Prize of Viennese Industry
1996.
1997 Presentation of the architectural project Die Wald-Spirale
von Darmstadt. Exhibition of stamp designs, graphic work and
architecture models at the Philatelia in Cologne. Awarded the
"Grand Prix of German philately". Works on 366 individual
book cover designs for Bertelsmann Book Club. Inauguration of
the Rogner Thermal Bath in Blumau, Styria. Design and model
of the architecture project MOP for the city of Osaka, Japan,
and Hoch-Wiesen for Dresden, Germany. Architectural design and
model for a farmers's market in Altenrhein, Switzerland.
1998 Retrospective museum exhibition at the Institute Mathildenhöhe,
Darmstadt, Germany. The Submersion of Atlantis, a ceramic-mural
is installed at Oriente station in Lisbon. Supports an ecological
project for the afforestation of the desert in Israel with his
poster Among trees you feel at home.
1999 Hundertwasser lives and works in New Zealand. Architectural
projects: Sludge Center, Osaka; The Green Citadel of Magdeburg
and Uelzen Railroad Station, Germany. Reconstruction work for
the new Kawakawa Public Toilet, New Zealand. Rejuvenation treatment
for the ship Regentag. Designs the layout and book covers for
his oeuvre raisonné books.
2000 Architectural projects for Teneriffa and Dillingen/Saar,
Germany. Dies on Saturday, February, 19, in the Pacific, on
board of Queen Elizabeth II from a heart attack. According to
his wish he is being buried in harmony with nature on his land
in New Zealand, in the Garden of the Happy Deads, under a tulip
tree.
Artist's Gallery
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