Painter and printmaker Rudolf Hradil was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1925 and, after the Second World War, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and under Fernand Léger in Paris. From 1959–60 he studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London on a British Council scholarship, where he learnt etching and developed a keen interest in drypoint. From the mid-1960s his artistic career was mainly centred on continental Europe.
Painter and printmaker Rudolf Hradil was born into an artistic family in the village of Morzg, near Salzburg, Austria on 1 April 1925. His father was a drawing teacher and his mother had studied painting with Leo Putz in Weimar. Despite graduating from Salzburg’s Realgymnasium, Hradil’s cultural education was severely impacted by the Anschluss (Nazi annexation of Austria) in 1938 and the suppression of so-called ‘degenerate art’. During the Second World War, he served in Italy and was taken prisoner by English troops in Rimini. Afterwards, he enrolled at the Wiener Technik to study architecture, then maths, at the University of Innsbruck from 1946-47, and also attended evening life drawing classes organised by the painter Toni Kirchmayr.
It was not until 1947 that Hradil was first formally exposed to modern art. He later reflected that: 'My education at the Realgymnasium Salzburg […] coincided with the Nazi era. My entire cultural development was completely interrupted and set back for years. What little I knew about modern painting I owed to my mother, who showed me pictures of works by banned or outlawed painters, even then. I would not see the first large exhibition of modern painting until after the war [...] Organised by the High Commission of the French Republic, it was shown in the Museum of Decorative Arts [in Vienna] and contained treasures from museums and private collections. The catalogue, which I still have, lists all the famous names of French modernism: from Bonnard and Braque to Cezanne, Chagall, Degas, Gauguin, Van Gogh Leger, Manet, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Pissarro, Renoir, Rousseau and Utrillo and Vuillard' (Wieland Schmied, Rudolf Hradil: Städte und Landschaften [Cities and Landscapes], 1988), [translated from German]). Later the same year, Hradil enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna to study painting under Robin C. Andersen. In the summer of 1948, he modelled for and studied under Austrian expressionist Anton Kolig in the village of Nötsch im Gailtal, prompting his use of bright colours and expressive forms. He continued to study at the Academy until 1951, when he received a scholarship from the French government to study painting and worked in Fernand Léger’s atelier until 1953. He began to explore the urban landscape deprived of human presence, a recurring theme in his work, and in 1955 he participated in his first group exhibition, held at the Salzburg Künstlerhaus.
In the late 1950s the head of the British Council in Vienna saw Hradil's lithographs and arranged a scholarship which enabled him to attend the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London from 1959–60, where he learnt various etching techniques and developed a keen interest in drypoint. Etching was his preferred medium. He later recalled: ‘Since you have to fight with great strength and against hard resistance, the drawn line probably loses a bit of its elegance, but it retains a particularly appealing naivety. When printed, the burr produced during engraving results in a strikingly lively, velvety line’ (Rudolf Hradil website). In London he produced city and riverscapes including St Paul’s Cathedral, Escalator (1959) and Tower Bridge and Underground (1960) and met with numerous fellow émigré artists. Through his friend Resi Clark, who had immigrated to London from Berlin as a young girl, Hradil met the writer, Elias Canetti, whom he often called on at the Hampstead home of Austrian-born painter, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky (where Canetti had his library and studio). Hradil also met American painter and graphic artist Michael Biddle, with whom he often visited Austrian-born poet Erich Fried, who had fled to England after the Anschluss.
In 1963 Hradil studied at the Austrian Cultural Institute in Rome and in 1964 became a member of the Vienna Secession. His work often featured the places he visited during his extensive travels to England, Italy, Greece, France, and the cities of Berlin and New York. He was fascinated by the juxtaposition of historical buildings and modern infrastructures and technology. Encouraged by the Bauhaus artist Max Peiffer Watenphul, he also learnt watercolour painting and perfected the technique of colour lithography. From 1964 onwards he was a frequent exhibitor at Galerie Welz in Salzburg and, between 1969 and 1988, at Gallery Würthle in Vienna. Hradil won scholarships from the Max Beckmann Society in Murnau and Frankfurt (1965) and from the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD) in Berlin (1986). He taught etching and watercolour painting at the International Summer Academy in Salzburg in 1981, 1982, and 1984 and was awarded the Golden Badge of Merit of the State of Salzburg in 1990, and the Coat of Arms of the City of Salzburg in 2005. Rudolf Hradil died in Vienna, Austria on 26 October 2007. His work is represented in the UK in the Ben Uri Collection, as well as the collections of the Albertina Museum, the Salzburg Museum and Staatliche Graphische Sammlung.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Rudolf Hradil]
Publications related to [Rudolf Hradil] in the Ben Uri Library