Curt Stenvert Biography
Curt Stenvert (1920 - 1992) was an Austrian painter, filmmaker, photographer and object artist. He is considered one of the most important artists of the post-war Viennese avant-garde. Kurt Steinwendner, officially Curt Stenvert since 1969, was born in Vienna. In the summer semester of 1942/43, Stenvert was admitted to Karl Sterrer's general master's course in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but had to interrupt his training several times after being drafted into the German Wehrmacht. Between 1945 and 1949 he completed the master course for painting with Albert Paris Gütersloh, studied sculpture and then began studying theater and film studies at the University of Vienna in 1949. He frequented personalities of the "Viennese School of Fantastic Realism " and in 1946, he became a founding member of the Art Club of Vienna. Inspired by phase photography, the first major moving films emerged in 1947, in which Stenvert combined elements of futurism, constructivism and cubism. Stenvert came to cinema in the 1950s by addressing the theme of movement. He did pioneering cinematic work as a director with Der Rabe, the first post-war Austrian avant-garde film, and his first feature film Viennese Women, a social study of the lives of Viennese bricklayers, "Strizi" and prostitutes. Parallel to his work as a director, Curt Stenvert began to devote himself to the art object in 1962. The image boxes he called "Human Situations" document his engagement with contemporary issues such as consumer behavior, politics, technology , as well as the timeless basic conditions of human existence, which he staged in showcases as if on a small stage. In 1970, Curt Stenvert received a professorship of art objects at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Kassel and at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe. His work has been featured in extensive solo exhibitions at the Frans Hals Museum and the Museum voor Moderne Kunst. Stenvert's first and only large-scale Viennese museum exhibition followed in 1975 in the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere with over 80 works displayed in the rooms of the upper Belvedere.
