(H/B) HUNDERTWASSER FRIEDENSREICH 1928-2000 (3822862207)

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Friedensreich Hundertwasser died on 19 February, 2000, not quite two months after his 71st birthday. His death, while on board the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth II, came as a complete surprise even to his closest friends. After an uninterrupted stay in Kaurinui, Bay of Islands, New Zealand of almost two years, Hundertwasser was once again travelling home to Europe. This time he had not wanted to travel by air, but to take his time and paint in peace and quiet on board a cruiser. His original plan of travelling on a freighter, which would have been more in keeping with his outlook, had not worked out.
On 19 February, 2000, the Queen Elizabeth II lay at anchor in Brisbane, Australia and was preparing to continue its voyage when Hundertwasser suddenly died: cardiac arrest, the quickly summoned doctors diagnosed. "There is something touching about the fact that Hundertwasser died on the water and on a ship," wrote Gerhart Matzig in an obituary article in the "Sud-deutsche Zeitung". "Anything seems possible on the water: it bears you up and yet it is not solid; you gaze far out into the distance and heaven is always nearby."
On 3 March, 2000, Hundertwasser was buried beneath a tulip tree on his land in Kaurinui, just as he had always wanted to be, very close to the sea, with no coffin, his naked body wrapped in the Koru flag he had designed for New Zealand in 1983. He was lowered 2 1/2 feet into the earth he had so dearly loved and with which he was now united for good.
When news of Hundertwasser's death reached us, this publication was in the midst of production. Up to the last days before his departure, the artist had worked on the commentary for his Catalogue Raisonne and was pleased to have finished it just in time -as if he had suspected that he did not have much time left. This first volume, the result of nearly a decade's work, containing the text of the monograph, whole passages of which had been discussed with the artist (which did not preclude occasional differences of opinion), had already been completed by the autumn of 1999. The publishers and author agreed that everything should remain as planned and -apart from a few minor details- that nothing should be changed.
Hundertwasser went his way alone. He was, literally, what is often called a "rugged individualist". He never joined a group, a movement, a party. He always made a point of being on the sidelines. That is why throughout his life he never received the appreciation he deserved and was singled out for prejudice, misinterpretation and attack (and still is after his death), perhaps more so than any other ranking contemporary artist. He was an easy target for all who upheld the established aesthetic status quo.
It is therefore understandable that someone who has known the artist's work for a long time and has followed his development with interest should feel compelled to take the role of advocate, while making an effort to remain objective and preserve a critical eye, in order to defend that work against the criticism which he believes is unjustified.
Perhaps a personal remark may be added. It has now been about 50 years since I first met Hundertwasser, when I myself was a young man, in the Vienna Art-Club, the bar and cellar gallery called the "Strohkoffer" (Straw Valise) in the Karntner Passageway. I sat there with the artist on many an evening after that -sometimes surrounded by his paintings, if they happened to be on display. When you consider Hundertwasser's later opposition to the ideas of Adolf Loos, it seems less than a mere coincidence that we met there, in the Art-Club, just one floor beneath the old American Bar which Loos had created (and which had not yet been restored). At the time -or during one of my later visits to his studio flat on Obere Donaustrasse- I promised him that I would write a book about him and his work someday (it was his suggestion, and I think he meant it seriously from the start). [...] (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

Foreword
CHAPTER I The Hundertwasser Phenomenon
1 A Living Contradiction: Encounters with Hundertwasser
2 The Seventh Wonder
3 King Midas?
4 A Host of Architectural Projects
5 The Downside of Success
6 He Believes in His Mission
7 The Two Sides to His Doctrine of Salvation
8 Utopian Ambitions
9 The Productive Fringe
10 Two Stories Intertwined
CHAPTER II Hundertwasser on the Way to Himself
11 Early Days
12 The Four Names
13 Identity and Internationality
14 Personality, Life and Work in One
15 The Point of Departure in Vienna: Hundertwasser and Rainer
16 Between Childlike Naivety and "Jugendstil"
17 Visual Innocence: A Childlike Vision of the World
18 The Golden Lines in Sulaiman's Court
19 The World as a Spiral
20 The Magic of Colour
21 The Titles of the Paintings
22 The Oeuvre-Catalogue
CHAPTER III Theory - From Thought to Action
23 The Grammar of Seeing
24 The Mould Manifesto
25 Public Appearances: The Nettle Manifestation
26 Public Appearances: "The Line of Hamburg"
27 Public Appearances: The "Speeches in the Nude"
28 Hidden Topicality
29 The Concept of Beauty
30 Hundertwasser's Relationship to Modernism
CHAPTER IV Hundertwasser and Tradition: Models, Kinships, Dissociations
31 Remembering Klimt and Schiele
32 The Radical Commitment: "Los von Loos"
33 "The Stones of Venice" and the Religion of Beauty
34 The Ornament's Declaration of Independence: Ruskin's Legacy
35 William Morris' Dream
36 Gaudi and Cheval
37 Rudolf Steiner and the First Goetheanum
38 Hundertwasser's Other Concept
39 "The Putrefactions of the Right Angle": Malta's Manifesto for a "Sensuous" Style of Architecture and Kiesler's "Grotto for Meditation"
40 The Houses on the Island of Santorin
CHAPTER V The Painter
41 Youth Works
42 Different Periods of Hundertwasser's Painting
43 The Naive Paintings, 1949-1953
44 The Spiral Period
45 The Early 1960s
46 Symptoms of Crisis
47 The Period of Synthesis
48 The Last Paintings
49 Hundertwasser and Friedensreich
50 The Tree Assistant: Hundertwasser the Teacher
51 Attempts with Graphics
52 Hundertwasser's Graphic Strategies
53 Colourful Dreams Under the Microscope: Postage Stamps
54 The Licence Plate Dispute
55 A Profession of Faith: The Flags
56 Pictures for the Bible or: The Issue of Religion
57 The Environmentalist
58 The Humus Toilet
59 The Dream of Paradise: The Road to New Zealand
CHAPTER VI Hundertwasser the Architect
60 The Mole: Forefather of All Architects
61 The Example of the "Schrebergarten"
62 Theoretical Foundations
63 The Genesis of the Hundertwasser House
64 The Hundertwasser House: Key Elements
65 The Hundertwasser House: The Facts
66 The Hundertwasser House: The Reactions
67 The Hundertwasser House: A Tentative Assessment
68 The Rain Tower in Plochingen
69 The Rolling Hills of Bad Blumau
70 The Heddernheim Day-care Centre
71 Humanity and Nature: A Conflict with the Church
72 The Church in Bambach
73 The Architectural Doctor
74 The KunstHausWien
75 The District Heating Plant in Spittelau, Vienna
76 Last Architectural Projects
77 Farewell in Kawakawa
Conclusion
Friedensreich Hundertwasser
A Selective Biography
Index