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Gallery Lehner Vienna Getreidemarkt 1/8 Mezzanin, A-1060 Vienna | t: +43-1-5854623/23 / f: +43-1-5854623/30 | e: [email protected] Opening Hours: Tuesday - Friday 14:00 - 18:00, Saturday: 10:00 - 13:00 HANS FRANTA Hans Franta was born in 1893 in Linz. In 1914 he volunteered for one year of military service and served on the Russian front. By the fall of 1914 he had already been captured as a Russian prisoner of war, and he remained in Siberia from 1915-1921. He met his future wife there, who he later married in 1918. In 1919 he met David Burljuk, with whom he collaborated on the first futuristic newspaper in Russia (co-editors Kamensky and Majakowsky). In 1929 he returned from Russia on the last repatriate transport. From 1925-1929 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna with Professor Karl Sterrer. From 1929-1941 he worked as a professor of freehand drawing at the Municipal High School of Linz and Spittelwiese. In 1941 he re-enlisted in the military, and in 1942 he was sent home following a heart attack. In 1943 he was discharged from the German armed forces for medical reasons. From 1943-1957 he painted intensively and taught with leaves of absence at a high school. After 1957 he took numerous study trips and spent time in the USA. In 1983 the 90 year old artist died in Linz. Franta's work appeared in numerous exhibitions both domestically and abroad, including in the New Gallery of the City of Linz (1976), the Palazzo Grassi in Venice (Arte di Vienna), and a traveling exhibition which began in the house of artists under the title "Vienna around 1900" and was shown in various forms in Venice and later in the Pompidou Center in Paris. When one compares the early works of Hans Franta " from approximately 1911 to 1920 " to his later works from after World War II, then it's clear that he developed his artistic personality during the first half of the century and never abandoned it despite the contrast to the predominant contemporary art movements and styles of the later part of the century. Franta's artistic perspective was influenced by his own personal view of reality as well as by his many years in Siberia. He did not ignore the contemporary environment of art creation, but rather the influence of impressionism as well as art noveau can be seen in his paintings. The outcome of this was in no way a drastic dependence which hindered him in the formulation and further development of his own artistic point of view. Franta focused on a few main themes using his preferred techniques of pastel and drawing. His nearly impulsive shift to landscapes, which he illustrated in their archaic structure, as well as his interest in architecture, which is reflected in his work through the reduction to the fundamental structural elements of surface, line, light, and shadow, are aspects of his character which remained constant over time. Franta understood himself in his landscape portraits but never as a cool distant observer. Through the dominate use of color he attained an aggregation of sentimental value and proved his methods as a dedicated observer, whose work in addition to aesthetic interest was always influenced by personal experience and intensive sympathies. www.galerielehner.at www.youtube.com/galerielehner
