Hundertwasser, Friedrich

(1928–2000)

   Born Friedrich Stowasser, Sto meaning Hundert or 100 in any number of Slavic languages, Hundertwasser was perhaps the best known artist of late20th-century Austria. Gifted with a highly fanciful visual and coloristic imagination, he made the spiral the center of his artistic vision. Though the bulk of his career was in Vienna, he traveled widely and made such global concerns as ecology, endangered species, world peace, and opposition to Austrian membership in the European Union part of his intellectual agenda.

   Hundertwasser, whose first major artistic success was at the Venice Biennale of 1962, worked productively in many genres of art, among them painting, graphics, and architecture. He has left his imprint on Vienna with his Hundertwasser House (1985), actually a municipal apartment complex that he designed as an alternative to what he regarded as the faceless character of modern architecture. Located in the Third District (Landstrasse) of the city, its startlingly brilliant hues, irregular outlines, and seemingly random juxtaposition of style have made it a major tourist attraction. He also took on more conventional commissions, such as postage-stamp design for the government.