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a black and white drawing of a group of peoplean old book with a black and white drawing of a man on a horse
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192 - Alfred Hrdlicka*
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Estimate €100 - €200
Sale commission
Description
Alfred Hrdlicka* (Vienna 1928 – 2009 Vienna) Return from France and journey inward, 1972 etching on paper, 49.7 x 59.6 cm signed Hrdlicka, dated 1972 numbered 147/150 ESTIMATE €100 – €200 STARTING PRICE °€ 100 Alfred Hrdlicka was an Austrian sculptor, painter, draughtsman, graphic artist, chess player and writer. One of his cousins is the Munich-based jazz musician Franz “Litschie” Hrdlička. Powerlessness in history and the present, in war, violence and fascism, are recurring themes in his artistic works, in which he did not follow the general trend towards abstraction, but rather continually developed his own figurative-expressive style, which remained fundamentally committed to realism. Hrdlicka studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under Albert Paris Gütersloh and Josef Dobrowsky. He then switched to sculpture at the academy under Fritz Wotruba. From 1955, Hrdlicka ran a lithography workshop in Vienna with Georg Eisler, Fritz Martinz and Rudolf Schönwald. Together with Martinz, he held his first exhibition, ‘Sculpture, Painting and Graphics’, at the Zedlitzhalle in Vienna in 1960. He gained international recognition in 1964 when, together with Herbert Boeckl, he represented Austria at the 32nd Venice Biennale. In 1967, he created a bust of Federal President Karl Renner for the City of Vienna. Its installation was met with angry protests from the ‘League Against Degenerate Art’. Hrdlicka was a professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, the Berlin University of the Arts and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Notable students in Stuttgart included Manfred Bercher, Herbert A. Böhm, Heinz Dress, Gabriele Gebele, Elisabeth Habenicht, Joachim von Heimburg, Fritz Gerd Hoffmann, Susanne Knorr, Bert Mahringer, Cornelia Rühlicke, Hans Daniel Sailer, Manfred Bercher, Herbert A. Böhm, Susanne Knorr, Felix Sommer, Reinhard Bombsch, Herbert Göser, Ursula Kärcher, Alfons Koller, Angela Laich, Chu Hwan Lim, Birgit Müller, Markus Rapp, Joachim Sauter, Johann Schickinger, Michael Schützenberger, Eva-Maria Schwarz, Helmut Stowasser, Kurt Tassotti, Mehmet Yagur, Gerhard Zirkelbach, Dietrich Klinge and Markus Matthias Rapp. As a graphic artist, Hrdlicka became interested in the etching cycle ‘Roll over Mondrian’ in the mid-1960s, in which he explored the work of Piet Mondrian from a formal perspective. In Berlin, he created the Plötzensee Dance of Death for the memorial to the victims of Nazism. In Wuppertal, he erected a sculpture of Friedrich Engels (“The Strong Left”). Hrdlicka himself described the memorial against war and fascism, unveiled on Albertinaplatz in Vienna, as his most important work. Hrdlicka was friends with the German socialist Oskar Lafontaine. Together with Peter Turrini and Manfred Deix, he created a metre-high horse during the Waldheim affair in 1986. Other artists and styles: Fritz Wotruba, Joannis Avramidis, Bruno Gironcoli, Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, Käthe Kollwitz, Viennese post-war sculpture, political art, anti-fascist memorial culture, figurative expression, monumental sculpture, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Edwin Grienauer, Josef Müllner, post-war political sculpture, the Viennese stonemasonry tradition PLEASE NOTE: The purchase price comprises the highest bid plus the buyer’s premium, VAT and, where applicable, the artists’ resale rights fee and platform fee. In the case of standard taxation (marked °), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax of 13% (20% for photographs) is added to the sum of the highest bid, the buyer’s premium and the platform fee. The buyer’s premium amounts to 28% in the case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.
See original version (German)
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About the sale Modern Art
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Auction time 09/30/2026 at 10:00 AM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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