Kurt Absolon
Kurt Absolon

1925
Kurt Absolon was born on February 28 in Vienna. His father, Vinzenz Humbert Absolon, was an employee in the private sector and a playwright. His mother Hermine, née Wasinger, was a housewife. Absolon grew up with three sisters and an elder brother.

1943 – 1945
After graduating from school, Absolon was mobilized and served two years in the army, where he sustained several injuries.

1945 – 1949
He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he attended Robin Christian Andersen’s master art classes from the winter semester of 1945/46 to the summer semester of 1949. He also took part in Herbert Boeckl's 'Abendakte' –life-drawing classes featuring nude models–, and was an auditing student at Albert Paris Gütersloh's fresco course for one semester. During his studies, Absolon received an annual grant of 600 schillings from the city of Vienna.

1948
Held by Harvard University on the initiative of the American occupying forces, in June Absolon sojourned at Schloss Leopoldskron near Salzburg, where he met Curt Wiespointner.

1949
Recipient of a student allowance of 300 schillings from the city of Vienna.


1950
As a member of the informal 'Gruppe 50', he was close to the circle of Hans Weigel and frequented Café Raimund at Museumstrasse 6, in Vienna's first district. During this time his drawings were strongly influenced by literary suggestions.

1951
Illustrations for Hans Weigel's Stimmen der Gegenwart 1951 (Voices of the Present, 1951), Unvollendete Symphonie (Unfinished Symphony) and Walter Toman's Die eigenwillige Kamera (The Obstinate Camera) as part of Weigel's published series Junge österreichische Autoren (Young Austrian Authors). He also illustrated Herbert Eisenreich's short story Der Dampfer (The Steamer) and created the cycles Jardin du Mal, Pierrot, Cain, Job and Don Quixote.

1951 – 1955
Absolon took on different jobs to earn a living. He worked as an unskilled labourer in the reconstruction of Vienna's Westbahnhof station, at Unilever AG, Nowaks Witwe (woodworks), Hanke & Cösngei (publishers) and as a messenger at Patzelt & Co, a photochemigraphic art establishment. During this time he acquainted art collectors Hans Strotzka –a depth psychologist and physician– and his wife Veronika.

1952
Following a sojourn in Bad Gleichenberg, Styria, (April 15-23), on May 30 he married Adele Kitzweger. On July 10, 1952 they moved to their studio home at Steinbauergasse 36/20/15, in Vienna‘s 12th district. The couple lived mainly on her accountant's salary from the steel constructors Waagner-Biro. His animal studies at Schönbrunn zoo date from this time, as well as several landscape drawings on the occasion of his repeated sojourns at St. Ulrich am Pillersee (Tyrol). He also created the cycles Cœur Volé –after French poet Arthur Rimbaud– and Aphorismen (Aphorisms) and completed his first illustrations of Ernst Jünger's 'Marmorklippen' (On the Marble Cliffs). The illlustrations were rejected by the German writer, who had hoped for drawings by Alfred Kubin.


„Just as the question oft he meaning of life is a matterof conscience […] the work of art has similarly no purpose, it is […] simply the product of human spirit and human imagination born oft he longing […] to triumph over death through the work of art […] to overcome the dissolution into nothingness by bearing witness to the hereness.
Kurt Absolon, 1953


1953
Publication of Originalität, Radikalität and Individualität (Originality, Radicality, Individuality), an essay on art theory. On January 12 Absolon declined to become a member of Art Club. At the suggestion of Kurt Moldovan he applied for a scholarship for a sojourn in France. He also completed the cycles Schatten (Shadows), Zwischenräume (Interstices) and Ecce Homo and travelled to Feldkirch. In the course of 1953-54 Herbert Boeckl´s 'Abendakte' were resumed at Vienna´s Academy of Fine Arts.

 

1954
In the summer Absolon won the third edition of the 'Österreichischen Graphik-Wettbewerb' (Austrian Graphic Art Competition) held at Innsbruck's Tiroler Kunstpavillon, with his ink drawing Stillleben mit Fischen (Still Life with Fish, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum). Absolon shared the prize money of 8,000 schillings awarded by Austria´s Ministry of Education with the joint winner painter Walter Eckert. He completed the cycles Der Alte Mann und das Meer (The Old Man and the Sea) –after the work by Ernest Hemingway– and Sodom and Gomorrah.

1955
In this year he was presented with the Theodor Körner Foundation award in the field of fine arts and art photography and produced several drawings of Viennese cityscapes. From August to September he sojourned at Alpbach,Tyrol, where he took part in the European Forum Alpbach. In October the City of Vienna's Cultural Office purchased one of his still life watercolours. In the winter semester of 1955/56 he studied mural painting with Albert Paris Gütersloh at Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts.

1956
He became involved with printmaking and attended Franz Herberth's master classes in printing at Vienna's Academy of Applied Arts (now Vienna's University of Applied Arts). Execution of an sgraffito titled Raben (Raven) on the facade of Troststraße 18, in Vienna's 10th district as well as several drawings inspired by the popular uprising in Hungary. He also illustrated Martin Buber's Hasidic Tales and produced landscape drawings on the occasion of a sojourn in Tyrol. On October 8 Absolon was presented with the 'Förderungspreis der Stadt Wien', an award given by the City of Vienna to the amount of 3,000 schillings. In December the City of Vienna's Cultural Office agreed to purchase three of his drawings.

1957
Numerous drawings of gravid and nursing wife. Birth of daughter Iris Maria on March 19. At the 6th Austrian Graphic Art Competion held at Innsbruck's Tiroler Kunstpavillion, Absolon was awarded with the prize of the Institute for the Promotion of the Arts in Austria, to the amount of 2,000 schillings. Glass window designs for the parish of Don Bosco in Neuerdberg, located at 33 Hagenmüllergasse, in Vienna's 3rd district, of which only one window was executed. Recipient of a scholarship from the Institute for the Promotion of the Arts in Vienna, which enabled him to travel to Paris and Arles. Cityscapes and portrayals of bullfights ensued, as well as a cycle on the Passion of Christ and illustrations for Herbert Eisenreich's Carnuntum, Geist und Fleish (Carnuntum, Spirit and Flesh), published in 1960.

1958
Stucco design for the organ gallery in the parish of Maria Lourdes, in Vienna's 12th district, which was executed posthumously. On March 21 he was commissioned to produce the drawings for an Impressionist film by Kurt Steinwender (Curt Stenvert). On April 24 Absolon was invited by a friend to spend the day at the St. Margarethen Quarry in Burgenland. On his way back to Vienna the vehicle in which he was travelling as a passenger collided with a truck and Absolon was hurled out of the car. He sustained severe injuries to which he succumbed on April 26. On May 2 he was buried in a grave of honour at Vienna's Südwestfriedhof, in the 12th district (Group 34, row 10, number 40). On May 16 Adele Absolon designed a catalogue of her husband's oeuvre, naming and numbering the drawings (1 to 708) in red pencil.

1962
Four of Absolon's drawings appeared posthumously in Die Verbannten. Eine Anthologie (The Exiled. An anthology), a publication edited by Milo Dor.

1963
Twenty of his drawings appeared posthumously in Warum hier? Warum heute? Gedichte, Skizzen, Tagebücher (Why here? Why today? Poems, sketches, diaries), a text by Hertha Kräftner and Otto Breicha.

1966
Five of his drawings were published in Otto Breicha's annual publication Protokolle 66.


1967
The first retrospective in honour of Absolon was held at the Albertina featuring approximately 185 works on paper.

1968
Forty drawings –including four watercolours– from the estate of Absolon were exhibited at the Tiroler Kunstpavillon in Innsbruck. Adele Absolon died age 44 following a long illness. She is buried beside her husband at the Südwestfriedhof in Vienna's 12th district. As her daughter Iris Maria was still a minor at the time, the works of Kurt Absolon came into the care of Curt Wiespointner, a close friend of the deceased artist.

1973
A travelling exhibition featuring the work of Kurt Absolon was held by the Steirischen Herbst Festival at Graz, Eisenstadt, Bregenz, Vienna, Innsbruck and Klagenfurt.

1977
The Kurt-Absolon-Weg in Donaustadt (Vienna XXII) was named after the artist.


1990
On the initiative of Otto Breicha, a retrospective in his honour was held at the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna (now the Vienna Museum), which also laid the foundation for the first catalogue raisonné of his work.

1991
Retrospective at Salzburg's Rupertinum Museum.

2014
The presentation of Kurt Absolon by Galerie Maier of Innsbruck was distinguished with the Art Austria Award in the category Vergessen, vertrieben (Forgotten, exiled).

2019
Exhibition of ink drawings, watercolors and oil paintings at the Maier Gallery in Innsbruck.

2020
Collective exhibition by Kurt Absolon and Kurt Moldovan at the Kunstverein Horn in Lower Austria

2021
On the initiative of the Hainz Collection and the artist's estate, the first catalog raisonné with monograph is produced.

 

 

„Wir wissen heute noch nicht, wen wir in Kurt Absolon verloren haben. Er arbeitete in der Stille. Vieles bereitete sich bei ihm vor, was er noch nicht in Ausstellungen der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich machen wollte. Er kannte keine Hast. Er gehörte zu keiner jener Cliquen, die nicht laut genug schreien können, um über die Unzulänglichkeit ihrer Kunst durch Anma ung hinwegzutäuschen. Er hielt sich fern von allem Betrieb. Und nun ist er uns so unerreichbar fern. Als Mensch war er von großer Lauterkeit und Vornehmheit. Er lebte anonym. Es ärgerte ihn, wenn ein Kritiker anerkennend hervorhob, dass er jahrelang, sechs Jahre lang, Hilfsarbeiter und Laufbursche war, um geistig unabhängig zu bleiben und in den wenigen freien Stunden für sich das zu zeichnen, was er wollte. ‚Was hat das mit meinen Zeichnungen zu tun?‘ sagte er. ‚Nur auf sie kommt es an.‘“

Wieland Schmied, 1958

 

 

 

 

 

Kurt Absolon
Kurt Absolon
Kurt Absolon
Kurt Absolon
Kurt Absolon
Kurt Absolon
Kurt Absolon
Kurt Absolon
Kurt Absolon
Kurt Absolon

1925
Kurt Absolon was born on February 28 in Vienna. His father, Vinzenz Humbert Absolon, was an employee in the private sector and a playwright. His mother Hermine, née Wasinger, was a housewife. Absolon grew up with three sisters and an elder brother.

1943 – 1945
After graduating from school, Absolon was mobilized and served two years in the army, where he sustained several injuries.

1945 – 1949
He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he attended Robin Christian Andersen’s master art classes from the winter semester of 1945/46 to the summer semester of 1949. He also took part in Herbert Boeckl's 'Abendakte' –life-drawing classes featuring nude models–, and was an auditing student at Albert Paris Gütersloh's fresco course for one semester. During his studies, Absolon received an annual grant of 600 schillings from the city of Vienna.

1948
Held by Harvard University on the initiative of the American occupying forces, in June Absolon sojourned at Schloss Leopoldskron near Salzburg, where he met Curt Wiespointner.

1949
Recipient of a student allowance of 300 schillings from the city of Vienna.


1950
As a member of the informal 'Gruppe 50', he was close to the circle of Hans Weigel and frequented Café Raimund at Museumstrasse 6, in Vienna's first district. During this time his drawings were strongly influenced by literary suggestions.

1951
Illustrations for Hans Weigel's Stimmen der Gegenwart 1951 (Voices of the Present, 1951), Unvollendete Symphonie (Unfinished Symphony) and Walter Toman's Die eigenwillige Kamera (The Obstinate Camera) as part of Weigel's published series Junge österreichische Autoren (Young Austrian Authors). He also illustrated Herbert Eisenreich's short story Der Dampfer (The Steamer) and created the cycles Jardin du Mal, Pierrot, Cain, Job and Don Quixote.

1951 – 1955
Absolon took on different jobs to earn a living. He worked as an unskilled labourer in the reconstruction of Vienna's Westbahnhof station, at Unilever AG, Nowaks Witwe (woodworks), Hanke & Cösngei (publishers) and as a messenger at Patzelt & Co, a photochemigraphic art establishment. During this time he acquainted art collectors Hans Strotzka –a depth psychologist and physician– and his wife Veronika.

1952
Following a sojourn in Bad Gleichenberg, Styria, (April 15-23), on May 30 he married Adele Kitzweger. On July 10, 1952 they moved to their studio home at Steinbauergasse 36/20/15, in Vienna‘s 12th district. The couple lived mainly on her accountant's salary from the steel constructors Waagner-Biro. His animal studies at Schönbrunn zoo date from this time, as well as several landscape drawings on the occasion of his repeated sojourns at St. Ulrich am Pillersee (Tyrol). He also created the cycles Cœur Volé –after French poet Arthur Rimbaud– and Aphorismen (Aphorisms) and completed his first illustrations of Ernst Jünger's 'Marmorklippen' (On the Marble Cliffs). The illlustrations were rejected by the German writer, who had hoped for drawings by Alfred Kubin.


„Just as the question oft he meaning of life is a matterof conscience […] the work of art has similarly no purpose, it is […] simply the product of human spirit and human imagination born oft he longing […] to triumph over death through the work of art […] to overcome the dissolution into nothingness by bearing witness to the hereness.
Kurt Absolon, 1953


1953
Publication of Originalität, Radikalität and Individualität (Originality, Radicality, Individuality), an essay on art theory. On January 12 Absolon declined to become a member of Art Club. At the suggestion of Kurt Moldovan he applied for a scholarship for a sojourn in France. He also completed the cycles Schatten (Shadows), Zwischenräume (Interstices) and Ecce Homo and travelled to Feldkirch. In the course of 1953-54 Herbert Boeckl´s 'Abendakte' were resumed at Vienna´s Academy of Fine Arts.

 

1954
In the summer Absolon won the third edition of the 'Österreichischen Graphik-Wettbewerb' (Austrian Graphic Art Competition) held at Innsbruck's Tiroler Kunstpavillon, with his ink drawing Stillleben mit Fischen (Still Life with Fish, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum). Absolon shared the prize money of 8,000 schillings awarded by Austria´s Ministry of Education with the joint winner painter Walter Eckert. He completed the cycles Der Alte Mann und das Meer (The Old Man and the Sea) –after the work by Ernest Hemingway– and Sodom and Gomorrah.

1955
In this year he was presented with the Theodor Körner Foundation award in the field of fine arts and art photography and produced several drawings of Viennese cityscapes. From August to September he sojourned at Alpbach,Tyrol, where he took part in the European Forum Alpbach. In October the City of Vienna's Cultural Office purchased one of his still life watercolours. In the winter semester of 1955/56 he studied mural painting with Albert Paris Gütersloh at Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts.

1956
He became involved with printmaking and attended Franz Herberth's master classes in printing at Vienna's Academy of Applied Arts (now Vienna's University of Applied Arts). Execution of an sgraffito titled Raben (Raven) on the facade of Troststraße 18, in Vienna's 10th district as well as several drawings inspired by the popular uprising in Hungary. He also illustrated Martin Buber's Hasidic Tales and produced landscape drawings on the occasion of a sojourn in Tyrol. On October 8 Absolon was presented with the 'Förderungspreis der Stadt Wien', an award given by the City of Vienna to the amount of 3,000 schillings. In December the City of Vienna's Cultural Office agreed to purchase three of his drawings.

1957
Numerous drawings of gravid and nursing wife. Birth of daughter Iris Maria on March 19. At the 6th Austrian Graphic Art Competion held at Innsbruck's Tiroler Kunstpavillion, Absolon was awarded with the prize of the Institute for the Promotion of the Arts in Austria, to the amount of 2,000 schillings. Glass window designs for the parish of Don Bosco in Neuerdberg, located at 33 Hagenmüllergasse, in Vienna's 3rd district, of which only one window was executed. Recipient of a scholarship from the Institute for the Promotion of the Arts in Vienna, which enabled him to travel to Paris and Arles. Cityscapes and portrayals of bullfights ensued, as well as a cycle on the Passion of Christ and illustrations for Herbert Eisenreich's Carnuntum, Geist und Fleish (Carnuntum, Spirit and Flesh), published in 1960.

1958
Stucco design for the organ gallery in the parish of Maria Lourdes, in Vienna's 12th district, which was executed posthumously. On March 21 he was commissioned to produce the drawings for an Impressionist film by Kurt Steinwender (Curt Stenvert). On April 24 Absolon was invited by a friend to spend the day at the St. Margarethen Quarry in Burgenland. On his way back to Vienna the vehicle in which he was travelling as a passenger collided with a truck and Absolon was hurled out of the car. He sustained severe injuries to which he succumbed on April 26. On May 2 he was buried in a grave of honour at Vienna's Südwestfriedhof, in the 12th district (Group 34, row 10, number 40). On May 16 Adele Absolon designed a catalogue of her husband's oeuvre, naming and numbering the drawings (1 to 708) in red pencil.

1962
Four of Absolon's drawings appeared posthumously in Die Verbannten. Eine Anthologie (The Exiled. An anthology), a publication edited by Milo Dor.

1963
Twenty of his drawings appeared posthumously in Warum hier? Warum heute? Gedichte, Skizzen, Tagebücher (Why here? Why today? Poems, sketches, diaries), a text by Hertha Kräftner and Otto Breicha.

1966
Five of his drawings were published in Otto Breicha's annual publication Protokolle 66.


1967
The first retrospective in honour of Absolon was held at the Albertina featuring approximately 185 works on paper.

1968
Forty drawings –including four watercolours– from the estate of Absolon were exhibited at the Tiroler Kunstpavillon in Innsbruck. Adele Absolon died age 44 following a long illness. She is buried beside her husband at the Südwestfriedhof in Vienna's 12th district. As her daughter Iris Maria was still a minor at the time, the works of Kurt Absolon came into the care of Curt Wiespointner, a close friend of the deceased artist.

1973
A travelling exhibition featuring the work of Kurt Absolon was held by the Steirischen Herbst Festival at Graz, Eisenstadt, Bregenz, Vienna, Innsbruck and Klagenfurt.

1977
The Kurt-Absolon-Weg in Donaustadt (Vienna XXII) was named after the artist.


1990
On the initiative of Otto Breicha, a retrospective in his honour was held at the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna (now the Vienna Museum), which also laid the foundation for the first catalogue raisonné of his work.

1991
Retrospective at Salzburg's Rupertinum Museum.

2014
The presentation of Kurt Absolon by Galerie Maier of Innsbruck was distinguished with the Art Austria Award in the category Vergessen, vertrieben (Forgotten, exiled).

2019
Exhibition of ink drawings, watercolors and oil paintings at the Maier Gallery in Innsbruck.

2020
Collective exhibition by Kurt Absolon and Kurt Moldovan at the Kunstverein Horn in Lower Austria

2021
On the initiative of the Hainz Collection and the artist's estate, the first catalog raisonné with monograph is produced.

 

 

„Wir wissen heute noch nicht, wen wir in Kurt Absolon verloren haben. Er arbeitete in der Stille. Vieles bereitete sich bei ihm vor, was er noch nicht in Ausstellungen der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich machen wollte. Er kannte keine Hast. Er gehörte zu keiner jener Cliquen, die nicht laut genug schreien können, um über die Unzulänglichkeit ihrer Kunst durch Anma ung hinwegzutäuschen. Er hielt sich fern von allem Betrieb. Und nun ist er uns so unerreichbar fern. Als Mensch war er von großer Lauterkeit und Vornehmheit. Er lebte anonym. Es ärgerte ihn, wenn ein Kritiker anerkennend hervorhob, dass er jahrelang, sechs Jahre lang, Hilfsarbeiter und Laufbursche war, um geistig unabhängig zu bleiben und in den wenigen freien Stunden für sich das zu zeichnen, was er wollte. ‚Was hat das mit meinen Zeichnungen zu tun?‘ sagte er. ‚Nur auf sie kommt es an.‘“

Wieland Schmied, 1958

 

 

 

 

 

Kurt Absolon