Siegfried Neuburg

Siegfried Neuburg (born July 25, 1928 in Graz ; † 2003 ibid) was a painter from Graz .

Together with Günter Waldorf and Hans Nagelmüller, Neuburg is considered to be one of the pioneers of modernity in Styria . Together with Nagelmüller, he was one of the first Styrian painters to deal with constructivism in the 1950s . He was a member of the “Young Group” and a founding member of the Forum Stadtpark .

Central themes of Neuburg's works were the growth and decay of plants and the unspectacular hilly landscape of Styria in which human destruction is all the more evident.

“I pay special attention to two topics: the landscape and the plant.

I love the undramatic landscape of central Styria with its earthy hills, the fields and the wide views. I never get tired of following the twisting furrows. Here the landscape shapes people. There is still little evidence of any deformation caused by humans, and where it happens here, the wounds in nature are more accusatory and more clearly visible than anywhere else.

My second recurring theme, the life and death of plants, does not let me go. It is a great pleasure for me to observe and hold onto the most patient, but also most defenseless living beings on earth as they grow and strive upwards towards light and thus towards color. I recognize one of the world's inner rhythms in these vertical structures. "

- Siegfried Neuburg : Foreword in the exhibition catalog "Landscape and Plant", September 1998

In addition to numerous pictures in a wide variety of techniques (mainly oil and acrylic on canvas), he also created woodcuts , etchings and some large-format mosaics (including in various buildings of the Styrian regional health insurance fund, in whose in-house print shop in Graz he worked full-time).

Awards

• City of Graz Art Promotion Prize 1979
• Appreciation award of the state of Styria for visual arts 2001