Prof. Robert Hammerstiel

• Honorary Member of the Vojvodina Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2006.
• Born in Vršac, on 18 February 1933, as a son of a baker and icon painter Anton Hammerstiel and his wife, Theresa, whose family lives in Vršac and Vienna.
• From 1944 to 1947, as a German child, he had been held in several internment camps for Germans in Banat. In 1947 he escapes from the camp, flees to Hungary, and manages to reach Vienna.
• From 1948 he resides in Vienna, where he learns the baker’s craft, and, afterwards, for a period of time, works as a menial laborer in a foundry.
• From 1951 he studies painting with his father, and later with Prof. Gerde Matejka Felden, and studies with Robert Schmitt, Gerhard Swoboda i Hans Griesghaber in Vienna. He had his first solo exhibition in 1968 in Vienna. At the suggestion of the Austrian Ministry of Education, Arts and Sports, the President of Austria grants him the professional title of “professor” in 1985. Altstr. 43, A – 2623 Ternitz.

Information on Creative Work and Achievements

According to several references in literature, Prof. Robert Hammerstiel is “one of the leading graphic artists in the world today”.

He has had more than 120 solo exhibitions and 50 group exhibitions. He exhibited in the most prominent galleries in: Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, Rome, Bremen, Graz, Dortmund, Köln, Düsseldorf, Nürnberg, St. Pölten, Paderborn, Hannover, Münster, Mulhous, Salzburg, Prague, Ternitz, Gloggnitz, Svishtov, Villach, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Vršac, Ulm, Bruges, Lublin, Varna, Winterthur, Ostfildern, Basel, Zagreb, Bratislava, Kochi, Agora d’Evry, Grenchen.

His works are in the property of the most prominent museums and galleries of Europe and North America- in Vienna, Brauschweig, Salzburg, Karlsruhe, Hamburg, Münich, Düsseldorf, Gronau, Villach, Rome, London, Paris, San Francisco, New York, Lisbon, Novi Sad, Vršac, Sophia, Lugano, Berlin, Recklinghausen, Lublin.

He is the recipient of more than 20 high honors and awards in Austria, Hungary, France, Bulgaria, Germany, Serbia, Italy, the Vatican and Poland.

He is very attached to Vršac and Vojvodina, exhibiting this fondness since the early seventies, when he returned to Vršac and Vojvodina, for the first time after 1948, and his escape from the internment camp for Germans.

Throughout three decades he has been active in cultural and art events in SFRY: Počitelj, Zagreb, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Vršac, Mostar, solo exhibitions in Novi Sad (2005), Vršac (2002), and in Belgrade (2004).

He has donated more than 60 paintings to the Museum of Vojvodina, and more than 30 to the City Museum of Vršac.

His entire artistic and social output is directed towards the affirmation of values typical for Vojvodina’s society through his outstanding and widely recognized professional achievements- art, multicultural values, tolerance, the appreciation of diversity, as well as a civilized and prosperous coexistence with neighbors. This is also reflected in the fact that he speaks German, Serbian, Hungarian and Romanian.

In the CD presentation of his life and work, which was made for his solo exhibition in the Leopold Museum in Vienna, February-April 2006, half of the presentation is dedicated to his growing up in Vršac, his memories of Vršac and its surroundings, his life in the old and new Vršac, his Banat roots, and the traces of Banat and Vojvodina that endure throughout almost his entire artistic opus.

A great artist and a great man, recognized early on by prominent art historians and art critics, especially Prof. Dr. Rudolf Leopold, due to whom he was granted the opportunity, as  a precedent, to exhibit in the Leopold Museum in Vienna, a museum exhibiting the work of many world-famous artists (Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka …), many of whom are not amongst the living. The art of Roberta Hammerstiel is profoundly deep, full of silent magnitude, strength, certitude and steadiness. He inspires us with his efforts for the affirmation of Vršac and Vojvodina in the world. Vršac has the privilege and the honor, as well as does Vojvodina, the place from which he hails, and to which he always returns, that Roberta Hammerstiel is a man of the world, as well as one of our own.

An artist about whom a prominent critic had to say: “Hammerstiel is the legitimate heir of a Munch, a Matisse, and an Ensor” (J.P. Hodinh, London 1997).

Selected Publications

1. Published as Author, or Illustrated as Co-author 31 books, amongst which are:
2. Hermann Hesse / Robert Hammerstiel: Ode an Hölderlin (Oda Helderinu). Edition Graphischer Zirkel, Wien, 1995.
3. R. Hammerstiel: Franz Schubert – Die Winterreise (Franc Šubert – zimsko putovanje). Verlag Christian Brandstätter, Wien, 1997.
4. R. Hammerstiel: Galerie der Dichter (Galerija pesnika). Edition Graphischer Zirkel, Wien, 1997.
5. R. Hammerstiel: Galerie der Komponisten (Galerija kompozitora). Edition Graphischer Zirkel, Wien, 1999.
6. R. Hammerstiel: Von Ikonen und Ratten (O ikonama i pacovima). Verlag Christian Brandstätter, Wien,1999. Ovo delo prevedeno je i štampano i mađarskom (Verlag Adrianus/Budapest, 2001) i srpskom jeziku (Gradska biblioteka,Vršac, 2003).
7. Robert Hammerstiel Monographs
8. Robert F. Hammerstiel:Hammerstiel – Malerei. Niederösterreichisches Kulturforum, Schloss Rothmühle, Schwechat 1993.
9. Barbara Höller: Robert Hammerstiel – Monographie, Verlag V. M. M., Ternitz 1997, 124 str.
10. R.Hammerstiel: Monographie. Verlag Gerhard Höller Ternitz , 1998.
11. W.K. von Kendenich: Robert Hammerstiel- Sein Werk (Njegovo delo)‚ monografija, Benteli Verlag – Bern, 2001, str. 307
12. Katalog: Robert Hammerstiel -New York.Galerie Peithner – Lichtenfels, Wien, 2003.
13. R. Harather: Hammerstiel 70. Stadt Ternitz 2003.
14. R. Leopold, G. Geyer, R. Končar, W. Kos, S. Tretter, H. Aigner: Robert Hammerstiel- Bilder eines Zeitzeugen (slike jednog svedoka vremena). Leopold Museum,Wien, 2006, 93 str.