35 Facts About Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Friedensreich Hundertwasser emigrated to the Far North of New Zealand in the 1970s, where he lived and worked for most of the rest of his life.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser's best known work is the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna, which has become a notable place of interest in the Austrian capital, characterised by imaginative vitality and uniqueness.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser left to travel, using a small set of paints he carried at all times to sketch anything that caught his eye.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser's adopted surname is based on the translation of "sto" into German.

The name Friedensreich Hundertwasser has a double meaning as "Peace-realm" or "Peace-rich".

Friedensreich Hundertwasser worked in the field of applied art, creating flags, stamps, coins, and posters.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser designed stamps for Cape Verde and for the United Nations postal administration in Geneva on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In 1957 Friedensreich Hundertwasser acquired a farm on the edge of Normandy.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser married Herta Leitner in 1958 but they divorced two years later.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser married again in 1962 to the Japanese artist Yuko Ikewada but she divorced him in 1966.

In 1964 Friedensreich Hundertwasser bought "Hahnsage", a former saw mill, in the sparsely populated Lower Austria's Waldviertel.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser spent some time in the 1960s in the Tooro Kingdom in Uganda, Central Africa, where he painted a number of works and named them after the kingdom.

In 1972 Friedensreich Hundertwasser incorporated a stock company, the "Gruner Janura AG", in Switzerland; in 2008 it was renamed as "Namida AG".

In 1979 Friedensreich Hundertwasser bought the vast historical garden Giardino Eden in Venice, including the Palazzo Villa delle Rose, from Alexandra of Yugoslavia via his Swiss company.

In 1980, Friedensreich Hundertwasser visited Washington DC to support activist Ralph Nader's efforts to oppose nuclear proliferation.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser planted trees in Judiciary Square and advocated on behalf of a co-op apartment owner who was taken to court for installing a bay window.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser died on 19 February 2000 on board Queen Elizabeth 2 in the Pacific Ocean, from a heart attack.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser remains sui generis, although his architectural work is comparable to Antoni Gaudi in its use of biomorphic forms and the use of tile.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser was inspired by the art of the Vienna Secession, and by the Austrian painters Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser took no payment for the design of Hundertwasserhaus, declaring that it was worth the investment to "prevent something ugly from going up in its place".

Friedensreich Hundertwasser rejected the straight line and the functional architecture.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser rejected rationalism, the straight line and functional architecture.

For Friedensreich Hundertwasser, human misery was a result of the rational, sterile, monotonous architecture, built following the tradition of the Austrian architect Adolf Loos, author of the modernist manifesto Ornament and crime.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser called for a boycott of this type of architecture, and demanded instead creative freedom of building, and the right to create individual structures.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser campaigned for the preservation of the natural habitat and demanded a life in accordance with the laws of nature.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser wrote numerous manifestos, lectured and designed posters in favour of nature protection, including against nuclear power, to save the oceans and the whales and to protect the rainforest.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an advocate of composting toilets and the principle of constructed wetland.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser perceived feces not as nauseous but as part of the cycle of nature.

In 1993 Friedensreich Hundertwasser was invited to design an arts centre.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser completed the design but the project was not completed at that time.

In 1999 Friedensreich Hundertwasser started his last project named Die Grune Zitadelle von Magdeburg.

An art gallery featuring Friedensreich Hundertwasser's work was established in the Friedensreich Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangarei, New Zealand, and will brought to fruition his 1993 plans for the building.

The extensive work of Friedensreich Hundertwasser includes 26 stamps for various postal administrations.

In 1959 Friedensreich Hundertwasser got involved with helping the Dalai Lama escape from Tibet by campaigning for the Tibetan religious leader in Carl Laszlo's magazine Panderma.

In later years, when he was already a known artist, Friedensreich Hundertwasser became an environmental activist and most recently operated as a more prominent opponent of the European Union, advocating the preservation of regional peculiarities.