Eduard ANGELI

One year after his 75th birthday, the Infeld House of Culture in Halbturn in the Burgenland, is showing a retrospective of Eduard Angeli. The exhibition presents paintings and drawings from the 1970s to the present day. Most of the works are from the Infeld collection and are supplemented by works of the artist.

About Eduard Angeli

Eduard Angeli was born in Vienna in 1942. To become a painter was a decision based on smell for him: "At the age of 16, I was exposed to the wonderful smell of oil and turpentine in an artist's studio." Before that he wanted to become a physical education teacher.

With Prof. Robin Christian Andersen at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Eduard Angeli learned to draw and paint academically. Then, in 1965, he went to Istanbul and stayed there for seven years: artistically, he broke away from his academic education, became occupied with Turkish history and taught as a guest professor at the Academy of Applied Arts in Istanbul.

After returning to Vienna, his work became quieter and more reduced. Colors were pulled back, plain materials such as charcoal and red chalk were used. Since then, Eduard Angeli's work has been characterized by the total absence of the noise, the bustle and the distraction of the present. His paintings represent silence, calmness, melancholy and loneliness. A loneliness that the viewer is not afraid of, but that he or she may long for.

It is not the human being itself but the legacies of human activity that Eduard Angeli portrays. And also cities such as Venice, Istanbul, St. Petersburg, metropolises that have lost their historical importance.

Eduard Angeli: "Painting means making permanent decisions and creating order. I have to bring order to a wealth of possibilities that I have. Art is about order - at least for me. A painting is only finished when I no longer see a mistake, meaning there is order. However, there are always mistakes. No painting has ever been perfect."

Eduard Angeli on the Collector Family Infeld

"I met Peter Infeld in the early 1970s. We are born the same year, and soon there was a close, family friendship. I often visited him and his mother Margaretha Infeld. They repeatedly visited my studio and also purchased works. 

This good relationship never ended up until Peter's death. We had absolute trust in each other. The close bond included a profound knowledge of my work."