Robert Zeppel-Sperl

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Painting in block B5 / B6 in Alterlaa

Robert Zeppel-Sperl (born March 19, 1944 in Leoben , Styria , † February 25, 2005 in Vienna ) was an Austrian painter . He was a member of the Vienna Secession and co-founder of the Viennese artist group Realities .

biography

Bärnbach secondary school, facade design 1992 by Robert Zeppel-Sperl

Robert Zeppel-Sperl studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the early 1960s (Professors Maximilian Melcher and Max Weiler ). In May 1968 it had its first great success at the legendary secession exhibition “Realities”. Initiated by Otto Breicha , the exhibition with 5 other artists ( Wolfgang Herzig , Martha Jungwirth , Kurt Kocherscheidt , Peter Pongratz , Franz Ringel ) illustrated the upheaval that was taking place in Austrian painting at that time towards a new, expanded concept of art.

Before 1968, fantastic realism shaped Austrian identity and was something like statecraft. There was also the group around the Galerie next St. Stephan - also (with artists like Hollegha, Mikl, Prachensky) almost an institution. (The actionists were only on everyone's lips from June 1968 due to the famous "Uni-Ferkelei".)

The group “Realities” rebelled against this. Robert Zeppel-Sperl: “We said: We don't care, we do our own stuff; regardless of style differences. From a purely formal point of view, I don't have a lot to do with Pongratz, for example, but in my head I do. That was the more important thing. "

Robert Zeppel-Sperl integrated influences from old masters into his painting. B. Hieronymus Bosch, but also contemporary elements of the international art world, which turned from the then predominant abstraction to a new objectivity. The world of ideas in comics was also important to him.

The subjects of flower power, including the Beatles and revealing women, but also socially critical topics were found in his world of images, as well as the attitude towards life, the happiness and carefree of the 1960s and early 70s.

In 1969 he moved to Venice , where from 1995 several glass sculptures for the Berengo glass factory were created in Murano . From 1977 Zeppel-Sperl lived in the USA for at least 3 months a year before he set up his studio in Bali from 1991 . Since then he has been commuting regularly between Bali, Vienna and Venice.

The contacts with new places and cultures brought about changes in his artistic work, which is characterized by an enormous wealth of ideas. So it was the encounter with the Balinese culture and religion that brought Robert Zeppel-Sperl to deal with new motifs, but also new techniques, from 1989 onwards. He began to use the "contact technique" in his pictures, which was in contrast to the time-consuming glaze painting that was otherwise used.

He documented his spirit of renewal and independence from a young age.

Quotes:

“When we [Ringel, Pongratz and Zeppel-Sperl] started to paint, there were very specific opposing groups in Vienna: on the one hand the“ abstracts ”in the St. Stephan Gallery and in general, then the fantasy painting of the Vienna School and in between those already back then quite elderly expressionist. But we didn't want to have anything to do with any of this. We had the feeling that everything had been filed and painted, there was nothing left to give us. "

“I also tell a lot in my pictures, but these are stories without words. For me it is actually sad in today's art that the explanations of the works of art are more important than the works of art themselves. I still believe that a picture is a picture and the story that a picture contains must tell the picture itself . "

Book illustrations

Catalogs

  • Robert Zeppel-Sperl: Pictures from the Großhaus collection and glass sculptures from the Berengo collection, Palazzo delle Prigioni Nouve, Venice , published by Hamburger Förderkreis Kunstausstellungprojekte e. V. 2001, 207 pp., ISBN 3-934065-06-61 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Zeppel-Sperl, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian painter
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Leoben
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 2005
Place of death Vienna