Friedensreich Hundertwasser: Stark fortgeschrittene Genesis

Friedensreich Hundertwasser: Stark fortgeschrittene Genesis
HUNDERTWASSER, FRIEDENSREICH
1928 Vienna - 2000 Queen Elizabeth 2

Title: Stark fortgeschrittene Genesis.
Date: 1956.
Technique: Watercolour on paper.
Mounting: Mounted on canvas.
Measurement: 46 x 54.5cm.
Notation: Signed and dated lower left: HUNDERTWASSER 1956.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.

The work is listed in the artist's online catalogue raisonné under work no. 268 (not mounted on canvas here). (www.hundertwasser.com)

Provenance:
- Galerie Peerlings, Krefeld (directly from the artist, according to the consignor)
- Private collection, Lower Saxony

Exhibitions:
- 4th Sao Paulo Biennial, 1957

Literature:
- Fürst, Andrea Christa: Hundertwasser, 1928-2000, Catalogue raisonné, Vol. II, Cologne 2002, catalogue no. 268, p. 317, ill.
- Exhibition catalogue with catalogue raisonné, Hundertwasser, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hanover 1964, cat. no. 268

- On the jack-of-all-trades of Austrian art: artist, graphic designer, architect, philosopher, environmentalist
- Early spiral painting with high recognition value
- In 1956, he published his theory on "transautomatism": on the importance of contemplation for the completion of a work of art
- The spiral as a recurring main motif stands for life and death and the connection between man and nature

"Being a painter is something tremendous. Painting gives you the opportunity to venture into unexplored regions that are very, very far away from us. I believe that painting is a religious activity."
(Friedensreich Hundertwasser, quoted from the exhib. cat. Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 1975, p. 20).

The Hundertwasser Kaleidoscope
Friedensreich Hundertwasser is a truly unique and exceptional artist. His distinctive and recognisable forms of expression in painting, graphic art, applied art and architecture are extremely popular and fascinate people of all ages, cultures and social classes.
His greatest interest, even in the 1950s, was in ecology and the reconciliation of man and nature. In this and in his approach of considering a work of art to be created only through the perception of the viewer, Hundertwasser is an astonishingly visionary and "peculiar" artist.
The life of the artist, who grew up as Friedrich Stowasser, the son of a Jewish mother who was widowed early in the 1930s in Vienna, is reminiscent of a kaleidoscope: he changes his name – from Stowasser to Hundertwasser, to Regentag, to Dunkelbunt. He is constantly travelling, including between cultures. He lives in Vienna, France, Venice, Japan and New Zealand; he lives on a ship or on land. He cannot stand being at an academy, either as a student or as a teacher. Restless, changeable and yet always on his path, deeply rooted in himself, in nature and in his art.
Hundertwasser draws early inspiration on his way to finding his own form from Viennese Art Nouveau, especially Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. But he is also influenced by contemporaries such as Paul Klee and Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern, or artists who are no longer so popular today, such as Walter Kampmann and Hans Neuffer.
Hundertwasser was 33 years old when he exhibited his paintings for the first time at the Vienna Art Club in 1952. Once in the public eye, his outsider status was soon recognised in a positive light, as international success came quickly: in 1954, he had his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Facchetti in Paris and was represented at the Venice Biennale and the International Festival in Parma. From 1957 onwards, Hundertwasser worked with the French gallery H. Kamer. In the early 1960s, he received the Mainichi Prize in Tokyo, was honoured with retrospectives and was represented at documenta III. From the 1980s onwards in particular, he also emerged as an artistic architect and pioneer of façade greening. Friedensreich Hundertwasser died in 2000 on a boat trip off Brisbane.

"Highly advanced genesis"
In his theory of “transautomatism” from 1956, the year this sheet was created, and in the "grammar of seeing" developed from it, Hundertwasser emphasises how crucial the viewer's contribution is to the completion of a work of art. The number assigned by the artist is important for identifying individual works. The title is merely an invitation to make associations that may open up access to this watercolour, among others. One thing is certain: a watercolour-like streaky green is the predominant colour, interspersed with terracotta-brown and blue lines. The closed, green area does not fill the rectangular image, especially at its sides. It reaches close to the edge, but is itself largely enclosed by a reddish-brown line. Now, however, linguistic classifications become necessary: blue single and double eye shapes are increasingly found in the upper half of the image. In the lower half of the picture, two spiral shapes with a darker centre are placed on the right and left. Two small boats appear in white, one above the other, at the bottom edge of the picture. Based on the title provided, one possible interpretation could be that this is a view of a piece of nature – a garden, park or island – criss-crossed by brown paths and watercourses. A lake could be located in the lower right corner. This "advanced genesis" is not the biblical one; the boats are not natural, but rather represent the genesis, the becoming of this natural space, probably also through human design. The eye symbols may symbolise the soul, perhaps also the wisdom or protective nature of nature. In Friedensreich Hundertwasser's early work, there is a watercolour from 1949 showing a park in front of Pompeii. The sheet, created seven years later, looks like an unscaled bird's-eye view of a similar piece of nature.
Or is there another interpretation? Seen anthropomorphically, the spirals become eyes, the ships become a tiny mouth: a green nature spirit? Superficially, this watercolour, like all Hundertwasser's art, has strong decorative qualities. But in its ambiguity, which appeals to everyone, it is a great starting point for a journey of the mind into nature and the position of humans in such a fragile ecological balance.
Alexandra Bresges-Jung

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Explanations to the Catalogue

Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Figurative Art
Post-War Art
Post War
1950s
Framed
Abstract
Painting
Watercolour