Henriette Florian

Henriette Florian, 2009

Henriette Florian (born November 18, 1938 in Vienna ; † August 27, 2013 there ) was an Austrian painter and writer .

life and work

Henriette Florian was born on November 18, 1938 as the daughter of the painter Maximilian Florian and his wife Luise (née Herrmann) in Vienna. Even during her school days, Henriette Florian spent a lot of time in her father's studio and learned everything essential about painting from him. During this time she also began to write.

Joint study trips with her father took her to Munich and Amsterdam. Later she explored the culture and peoples in Anatolia and Armenia and visited the archaeological excavations in the Middle East.

Her literary talent was discovered and promoted by the former president of the Austrian PEN Club , Franz Theodor Csokor , whom she also portrayed, and by Alexander Lernet-Holenia and Herta F. Staub .

In 1964, Henriette's first poems were published in an anthology by Ennsthaler Verlag, and the following year the Künstlerhaus Wien exhibited the young artist's first works. In 1966 the Il Carpine gallery in Rome showed works by Florian. The Italian daily Il Messaggero wrote in a two-column review: “Henriette Florian shows a strong ability to use colors. Their colors are unconventional and offer a variety of colors. The pictures, in which they make an internalized spirituality transparent, such as in the portrait of Franz Theodor Csokor and the harpist […] ”, are impressively expressive.

In 1965 a lifelong exhibition activity began with her first exhibition in the French Hall of the Künstlerhaus Vienna. Solo exhibitions followed in the cities of Rome, Munich, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, Oslo, Paris, Sidi Bou Saïd and joint exhibitions with his father Maximilian Florian. Together with him, the painting "The Birth of Eve" was created in 1973.

The portrait paintings by David Ben Gurion, ( private collection ), Moshe Dajan, ( Museum of the Israeli Army) , "King of the World - Creativity of Man in the Cosmos" ( Wernher von Braun Museum, Houston ), and "Monolith of Peace" became known ( UN Headquarters New York ) and “La Solitude” ( UNIDO-Paris ).

On the occasion of the handover of her picture “Monolith of Peace” to the then UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim , Henriette Florian explained her motivation for this painting in a manifesto printed in the Arbeiterzeitung: “An experience and an impression determined my decision to create a new symbol with my picture of peace: The experience that the peace symbol of the dove has lost its power in our time. The pigeon is weightless and vulnerable, its flight limited and all too easily changeable. How can a symbol still give courage and confidence when it has become powerless and in need of protection? The impression that at a kilometer stone (101) officers of two states involved in war, miraculously meet each other for the first time, and that this kilometer stone can become a milestone towards peace. The history of mankind and its religions is decisively shaped by the symbol of the stone. In Islam, the holy stone of the Kaaba denotes the center of the world. The prophet Moses brought the divine law to his people on two stone tablets. And in Christian tradition, the resurrection of Christ gives a stone before his grave a deep meaning. In my picture with the square dimensions of 120 by 120 cm, a gray monolith hovers over planet earth as a symbol of the act of peace, which is still limited in time and space. However, through the humanitarian spirit in the form of the human eye, there is a connection to the immortality of the cosmos, which is represented in an infinite spiral. The earth shows green and reddish colors, the white tones symbolize knowledge, the blue the cosmic. The constructive shape of the monolith warns that mankind must create its peace anew every day and, even with sacrifices, maintain it itself. "

The painting cycle “Armenian Sacral Buildings” was created from 1987–88 and was shown in the Museum für Völkerkunde Vienna. Pictures by Henriette Florian are in the collections of the Federal Ministry of Education and Art, in the Cultural Office of the City of Vienna, the Carinthian and Lower Austrian State Gallery, in the Wernher von Braun Memorial of NASA (Houston), in the cultural center of the Israeli army in Tel Aviv, as well as in the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris and at the UN headquarters in New York.

Henriette Florian's last exhibition took place in May 2008 at Galerie Tromayer in Vienna. Here, too, an attempt was made to compare her works with those of her father. After that, the artist withdrew from the public.

Only a few days after the death of her partner Johannes Graf von Orssich de Slavetich (on August 17, 2013), whom she portrayed in her last picture, Henriette Florian died on August 27, 2013. They are both buried in the Neustift cemetery .

Technology and style

"Even as a young artist, Henriette Florian did not allow herself to be classified in any particular direction or group, painted carefree and unperturbed outside of all fashion trends, whereby the strict framing of her surfaces repeatedly gives rise to associations with icon painting . The complete lack of a painterly" education "led to that spontaneity and naivety characterize her works in the best sense of the word, almost all of which were created with oil on canvas. "

“Grown up in her father's studio, she learned more from him than a student at the academy can learn. She was also an extraordinary student of Prof. Basel, who taught at the Academy of the Museum of Applied Art. "

Henriette Florian's pictorial work includes numerous compositions, portraits, still lifes and landscapes. Her technique is mainly that of oil painting. She also created watercolors, drawings and colored woodcuts from her hand.

All of the works are strongly colored. Most of the oil paints are applied with a spatula. Strong contour drawings support and condense the image structure. Despite the abstract style, the representations are representational. The painter uses strictly constructed forms for abstract themes such as “song of matter”.

Exhibitions

• 1965 First exhibition of Henriette Florian's oil paintings in the Künstlerhaus Vienna
• 1966 Il Carpine Gallery , Rome
• 1967 Gurlitt Gallery , Munich Slama Gallery , Klagenfurt - together with her father Maximilian Florian
• 1968 Larsen Gallery , Copenhagen Modern Konst Gallery , Stockholm
• 1969 Galerie Weil , Paris Beth Zion America , Tel Aviv UNIDO , Vienna
• 1970 Hotel Waldorf Astoria , New York
• 1973 Museum of Applied Arts , Vienna together with her father Maximilian Florian
• 1974 Handover of her peace image "Monolith of Peace" in the UN headquarters in New York Exhibition at the invitation of the Tunisian government in Sidi Bou Saïd Exhibition in the gallery of the Steyr-Daimler-Puch-Haus
• 1975 "Year of the Woman" (group exhibition), Museum für Völkerkunde , Vienna
• 1976 Carolino Augusteum , Salzburg
• 1981 "Bildbrote und Customs" - exhibition in the Raiffeisenbank , Vienna
• 1988 touring exhibition of the painting cycle "Armenian Sacral Buildings" in the Museum of Ethnology , Vienna
• 1989–1992 in the Nordico City Museum , Linz City Museum Leoben City Museum St. Pölten Lichtenstein Palace , Feldkirch
• 1990–1994 participations in exhibitions in Vienna, Klagenfurt, Paris and Geneva
• 1994 Exhibition in the art forum of the AMV
• 2008 "Maximilian and Henriette Florian, an attempt at comparison" in the Tromayer Gallery , Vienna

Literary work

Her poetry and prose manifest a spontaneous, unconventional creative force that leaves all genres behind. She used word and color, pen and brush to, as she once said herself, “convey to people what art should give: hope for a dignified existence and the joy of the meaning of life.”

Henriette Florian wrote her first poems at the age of seventeen. Franz Theodor Csokor, President of the Pen Club, the poet Alexander Lernet Holenia and the writer Herta Staub became aware of you and promoted Henriette's talent. In the early years he wrote radio play manuscripts, short stories and fragments of novels.

In 1964, Schroeder Verlag published her first novel "The Mirror of Eternity"

In 1967 the radio play "Stilla" was broadcast for the first time on the Kärntner Rundfunk (directed by Ernst Willner). In 1972 the Volksbuch Verlag published "The Beggar's Harp". In the introduction to this novel, the editor-in-chief Karl Ziak wrote: “Help: that is the leitmotif that runs through all the very different stories of the members of the order. And at the end one of them says to the poet, when she is afraid of being alone: ​​“Write down your fear and you will find new courage! Share your loneliness with other people and you will no longer be alone! ”At first sight, Henriette seems to be a fantastic individualist; on closer inspection, she is a very social person. ”In 1976, Henriette Florian began working on the finalization of her trilogy of novels, the still unpublished novel“ Konstatius und Julian - Zwei Byzantine Kaiser ”. "The book describes the end of antiquity, which was replaced by the beginning of Christianity," she says. Henriette Florian did not find it difficult to put herself in the old Byzantium, because she says of herself: "I am a person of antiquity", wrote Hanne Egghardt. The novel was completed in 2005.

Throughout her life, Henriette Florian dealt with scientific topics, cosmology, social developments and dealt with religious content in the change of cultures (the latter is also the subject of the trilogy ) Essays, reflections, letters and manifestos (“ Milestone of Peace "And" The herbivorous lion ").

On Easter Sunday 2013 she dictated her last lines:

" The tin can :

The tin can has raisin eyes

and a cloth mouth.

It collects cemetery leaves in its pot, old leaves,

withered flowers and the last of the bees. "

Death and aftermath

Henriette Florian died on August 27, 2013. She was with the lawyer Dr. Heinrich Leopold (1937–2005) married. In the years that followed she became close friends with the Knight of Malta Fra Johannes Orsich de Slavetich (1934–2013).

From 2014 the sculptor Werner Lexen took over the entire estate. He was a student of Maximilian Florian and since his youth he has worked as an artist in the shared studio Florian. Werner Lexen is co-founder of the non-profit foundation "Societas Futura"

Works (excerpt)

• 

  Harp player , 1963, oil on canvas, 170 × 90 cm, sign. lu HF

• 

  The King of the World (The Inquisitive Spirit of Man in the Cosmos) , 1969, oil on canvas, 150 × 120 cm

• 

  Toteninsel , 1973, oil on canvas, 140 × 80 cm, sign. li.u. HF 1973

• 

  Milestone of Peace (Monolith of Piece) , 1974, oil on canvas, 120 × 120 cm

• 

  Archangel, 1988, oil on canvas, 147 × 115 cm

• 

  Gartenweg , 1994, oil on canvas, 90 × 130 cm, sign. re.u. Henriette Florian

Painting (excerpt)

• The painter Maximilian Florian , 1962, oil on canvas, 136 × 63 cm, monogr. left u. HF 1962
• The suffering , 1962, oil on canvas, 92 × 62 cm, monogr. left o. HF 1962
• The barren way , 1963, oil on canvas, 55 × 67 cm
• The nun , 1964, oil on canvas, 135 × 62 cm, monogr. left u. HF 1964
• The splinter in the eye of nature , 1964, oil on canvas, 86 × 78 cm, monogr. left u. HF 1964
• Matter song , 1964, oil on canvas, 130 x 156 cm, monogrammed. HF 1964
• The King of the World , 1968, oil on canvas, monogr. re. u. HF 1968
• Winter's Day , 1969, oil on canvas, 55 × 100 cm, monogr. re. u. HF 1969
• The red ribbon , oil on canvas, 90 × 120 cm, monogr. left u. HF
• Sonnentod (banks of the ark) , 1969, oil on canvas, 100 × 150 cm, monogr. re. u. 1969
• Milestone of Peace , 1974, oil on canvas, 120 × 120 cm, UNO, New York, USA
• Portrait of my father , 1976, oil on canvas, 136 × 63 cm, sign. Henriette Florian 1976
• Hakate , 1983, oil on canvas, 320 × 350 cm, sign. left u. Henriette Florian July 23, 1983
• Daughter of Medusa , 1984, oil on canvas, sign. left u. Henriette Florian September 4th 1984
• Flowers with four vases , 1984, oil on canvas, sign. re. u. Henriette Florian 1984
• The Emperor Constantine , 1985, oil on canvas, 205 × 163 cm
• Anatolios , 1986, oil on canvas, 140 × 110 cm, sign. left u. Henriette Florian 1986
• Sai Baba , 1993, oil on canvas, 240 × 110 cm, sign. left u. Henriette Florian September 14, 1993, private possession
• Saskia and Gladiolen , 1993, oil on canvas, 130 × 100 cm, sign. left u. Henriette Florian
• Irises , 1996, oil on canvas, 128 × 68, sign. re. u. Henriette Florian 1996
• White lilies , 1997, oil on canvas, 130 × 100 cm, sign. left u. Henriette Florian 1997, private collection
• Portrait of Jeannine , 1999, oil on canvas, 120 × 80 cm, sign. re. o. Henriette Florian
• Gladiolus , 1999, oil on canvas, sign. left u. Henriette Florian 1999
• Poppies , 2000, oil on canvas, 130 × 90 cm, sign. left u. Henriette Florian
• Flowers in Vase , 2004, oil on canvas, 130 × 80, cm, sign. re. u. Henriette Florian 2004, private collection
• Portrait of Frà Johannes in the Manta di Punta , 2006, oil on canvas, left u. sign. Henriette Florian, 2005–27. February 2006

Literary works

• The reflection of eternity. Fantastic novel crystals. Schroeder, Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1964
• The beggar's harp. Novel. Volksbuchverlag, Vienna 1972

literature

• Maximilian and Henriette Florian. Oil paintings, watercolors, drawings. Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, exhibition catalog, Vienna 1973
• Erich Tromayer: Maximilian and Henriette Florian. The attempt at a comparison. Self-published, Vienna 2008

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wilhelm Mrazek, foreword to the exhibition catalog, Henriette Florian, exhibition in the employee training center Velm, 1981.
2. ↑ It's Christmas again - Christmas poems by Austrian authors . Ennstaler Verlag, 1964, p. 42 .
3. ↑ Arbeiterzeitung, June 30, 1974.
4. ^ Museum of Ethnology (ed.): Catalog for the exhibition "Armenia, History and Culture", curator Dr. E. Manndorf . Vienna 1988.
5. ^ Wilhelm Mrazek: Catalog for the double exhibition Maximilian and Henriette Florian in the Museum of Applied Art . Ed .: Wiener Kunstverein. Vienna 1973.
6. ↑ Erich Tromayer : Catalog "Maximilian and Henriette Florian, the attempt at a comparison" . Vienna 2008.
7. ^ Nachlass Florian - Societas Futura - Werner Lexen: Manuscript for the lecture "Art once different" in the Vienna Urania . 1984.
8. ^ Wilhelm Mrazek: Catalog for the double exhibition Maximilian and Henriette Florian in the Museum of Applied Art . Ed .: Wiener Kunstverein. Vienna 1973.
9. ^ Nachlass Florian - Societas Futura - Werner Lexen: Manuscript for the lecture "Art once different" in the Vienna Urania . 1984.
10. ↑ Karl Ziak: The beggar harp, blurb . Ed .: Gutenberg Book Guild. 1972, ISBN 3-85341-036-7 .
11. ^ Hanne Egghardt: WIENERIN . Vienna May 1988, p. 97 .
12. ↑ Florian estate - Societas Futura - Werner Lexen . 1984.
13. ^ Societas Futura. Accessed October 2018 .