Biography

1930 born in Vienna
1947-50 education at the graphic teaching and research institute in Vienna-Neubau, at the department for commercial graphics
1951-60 worked as commercial graphic artist afterwards Illustrator of detective stories and as a caricaturist
1961 the beginning of a serious engagement with art and regular, long drawing sessions
1962/63 influenced by an exhibition showcasing sculptures by Joannis Avramidis, he made the first plaster sculpture
2022 died in Vienna, Austria

Solo Exhibitions

2021   ALL IN, Galerie Dantendorfer, Wien
2019   Surreal Daydreams, Kunstraum im Kinsky, Wien
2018   Paintings, Sculptures, Assemblages and Drawings 1960 – 2017, Galerie Ruberl, Wien
2016   Out of the Unknown, Belvedere21, Wien
2011   Kurt Hüpfner. Comedy of death, Galerie Dana Charkasi, Wien
2007   Kurt Hüpfner. Lifework, Galerie Sonnensegel, Wien

Group Exhibitions

2021    ALL IN, Galerie Dantendorfer, Wien
2015    Flirting with strangers. Begegnungen mit Werken aus der Sammlung, Belvedere21, Wien
2011    Art from another reality. Images of outsiders, Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt
2011    queerbeet, Galerie Altnöder, Salzburg
2010    The courtpainter. A hommage to Josef Karl Rädler, Galerie Altnöder, Salzburg, mit Ernst Schmid
2008    Kurt Hüpfner. Ernst Schmid - from the inside, Galerie Altnöder, Salzburg
2007    Art from the inside, Q 21 Museumquartier Wien

Kurt Hüpfner
Drawing Sculpture Painting

Approaches to a hitherto unknown œuvre

Published by: Peter Stasny
Publisher: Muery Salzmann
Book - 200 Pages
Publication date: 01.09.2012

Born in Vienna in 1930, Kurt Hüpfner is an art industry outsider, and has always remained beyond its borders. Raised in the city of his birth, Vienna remains the epicentre of his life. Having gone largely unnoticed by the public, he created a body of work there, which includes and merges the art forms of drawing, sculpture and painting. Furthermore, his work is simultaneously unconventional in its nature and a reaction to central positions held by the art history of the 20th century. Since 2006, Hüpfner’s work has been showcased several times in group and solo exhibitions, e. g. at Altnöder Gallery Salzburg, Dana Charkasi Gallery Vienna, Q 21 MuseumsQuartier Vienna, Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt, Belvedere Vienna. It demonstrates a sceptical and ironic approach to reality, often pays homage to black humour and has its origins in a fundamentally pessimistic outlook on life and the conviction of being at the mercy of a sinister destiny.