Hans Figura

Biography

Hans Figura was born in 1898 in Groß Kikinda in Hungary. In 1908, he attended the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt in Vienna and studied under Erwin Puchinger and Rudolf Junk. He served on the Russian and Italian fronts during the First World War. In addition to his small oeuvre of paintings, he mainly created prints, book illustrations, but also bookbinding and leather works, as well as numerous arts and crafts exhibits. He can be counted among the pioneers of these techniques, particularly in the field of colour etching and aquatint. In addition to his studio in Vienna, Hans Figura also had a studio in New York in the late 1920s. He regularly organised exhibitions at the Vienna Künstlerhaus, but also in New York, Paris, London and Berlin. His favourite genres were landscape painting and cityscapes. His most popular works in his oeuvre include city portraits and, above all, the winter landscapes of his native Austria. The artist died in Vienna in 1978.

Like Luigi and Robert Kasimir, Hans Figura is known to a wide audience as an excellent graphic artist whose finely woven and detailed colour etchings with views of the Austrian mountains as well as European and American metropolises made the artist very popular not only in Europe but also in the USA. In addition to his printmaking work, which is fascinating in its breadth of motifs, Hans Figura also created original paintings - as a balance, challenge or confirmation of his artistic ambitions. This apparently small oeuvre - only relatively few paintings are known to date, predominantly with winter motifs from the local Alps - is of excellent observation of nature and artistic quality.