On the occasion of the 85th birthday of Robert Hammerstiel (*1933), Galerie Laing is showing large-format paintings with a focus on the 1990s as well as works on paper.

Robert Hammerstiel will be present at the vernissage in Münster.

The painter, graphic artist and wood cutter born in Yugoslavia, was interned as a child in three different camps before his family managed to escape to Austria in 1947. By participating in various art seminars of the Federation of Trade Unions, the autodidact developed into a serious artist and began exhibiting his works in the early 1970s. Throughout his life, painting helped Hammerstiel to come to terms with his traumatic childhood experiences.

At the age of 55, Hammerstiel was influenced by Pop Art after a stay in New York. He used a stronger colouring, reduced his forms and figures to the essential and thus found his characteristic formal language. In 2006 Hammerstiel covered the Ringturm in Vienna with four large murals, and in 2009 the Leopold Museum in Vienna dedicated an exhibition of his graphic work to him.