Torso, 2008/2016

Sculpture as bronze casting in lost wax process, ed. 13/15

Dimensions: 70 x 16.50 x 9 cm

"I love stone in all its forms and hardness" Herbert Albrecht is quoted as saying about his preferred medium. The sculptor, who was born in 1927 in the Bregenzerwald, is one of the most important sculptors in Austria. In the 1940s, Albrecht attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Innsbruck, from which he graduated in 1946 after an interruption during the war. He then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he was a pupil of Herbert Böckl and Fritz Wotruba, among others.

His artistic career began primarily with the commission he received in the 1960s to design the monumental portal sculpture at the Cistercian Abbey of Mehrerau. Other large commissions in public spaces followed, including a large bronze in front of the Juridicum, Vienna.

Albrecht worked primarily with stone and bronze, remaining faithful to these materials until the end of his life. The formal realisation of his works is oriented towards pathological forms such as a torso or head. The experience of Cubism, but also that of classical and pre-classical sculpture, as can be seen in individual pieces, played a major role for him. Although Albrecht started from the block and the cube, he has moved away from this position. From the elementary body landscapes with differentiated, interlocking forms, which sometimes take on a vegetative character and obey a complicated light direction.