ROBERT HAMMERSTIEL* (Vršac 1933 - 2020 Neunkirchen ) Interior, 2016 oil/canvas 10 x 10 cm monogrammed RH signed, dated and inscribed Interieur Hammerstiel 2016 on verso ESTIMATE € 400 - € 600 STARTING PRICE € 400 Robert Hammerstiel grew up as the child of a Banat Swabian family in the Serbian quarter of Werschetz. His father had a bakery and painted on the side. In November 1944 Robert Hammerstiel was interned in several camps with his brother Alfred and his mother (his father was in the military) under miserable conditions. In August 1947 Robert Hammerstiel managed to escape with his mother and brother via Hungary to Lower Austria. From 1949 to 1953 he learnt a trade in a bakery in Pottschach. From 1955 he worked in the steelworks in Ternitz. After his hands were burned, he was transferred to the archives in 1979. Hammerstiel had drawn and painted autodidactically from an early age. In addition to depicting motifs from his environment, Hammerstiel, who saw himself as a "survivor of many dead," began to come to terms with his traumatic childhood experiences in the late 1960s. In 1958, Hammerstiel won a sponsorship award from the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions at the exhibition "Talents Awakened - Talents Discovered." 1959-1961 he attended several seminars with Gerda Matejka-Felden in Vienna. In 1963-1966 he studied in further art seminars of the trade union federation with Robert Schmidt, who drew Hammerstiel's attention to woodcut. Other teachers were Gerhard and August Swoboda. In 1968 he took part in an art seminar in Recklinghausen and exhibited there. From about 1972 Hammerstiel occupied himself with biblical themes, especially in woodcuts. From 1975 he participated in several international art symposiums, near Mostar, in Prilep, Macedonia and several times in Budapest. Since 1968 Hammerstiel exhibited nationally and internationally. In 1985 he was awarded the title of professor by the Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger. In 1988 Hammerstiel took early retirement, but remained active as a freelance artist. A trip to New York in 1988 was decisive for Hammerstiel's subsequent new phase of work. He turned to Pop Art, belatedly in terms of art history. He rediscovered colour and radically simplified forms. He depicted spaces in a new way, dispensing with everything incidental. From then on, his work was characterised by a vivid colourfulness and a radical, striking reduction of form. In 2007, the Ringturm in Vienna was covered by a monumental work by Hammerstiel that showed the stations of his life. Further artists and styles: Woodcut, pop art, icon painting, Ernst Fuchs, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Arnulf Rainer, Maria Lassnig, Imi Knoebel, Eva Hesse, Anselm Kiefer PLEASE NOTE: The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights. In the case of normal taxation (marked °), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax of 13%, for photographys 20%, is added to the sum of the highest bid and, the buyer's premium. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.