7. September 2022
The artist Gottfried Kumpf, whose naïve-looking figures and sculptures he affectionately dubbed “asocial” became well known, died unexpectedly on Monday following suffering a cardiac arrest. His wife Guni announced this to the APA on Wednesday. “He continued his artistic work undeterred and with joy until his last day and was full of plans for the future,” it said in a statement. Kumpf was 91 years old.
Gottfried Kumpf was born on November 29, 1930 in Annaberg-Lungötz, Salzburg. Not only that a path was named following him in 2005 and the “Eulenbrunnen” was built the following year, Kumpf designed a “Kumpf gondola” for the Donnerkogelbahn in 2019. And the community has meanwhile made their eldest son an honorary citizen, even though Kumpf started his artistic career elsewhere.
After graduating from high school in Schärding and studying medicine, the son of a country doctor devoted himself entirely to painting. From 1965 Kumpf worked as a freelance painter. After several years in Vienna, Gottfried Kumpf moved to Burgenland in 1968 with his first wife, the academic painter and tapestry weaver Maria Plachky. The couple settled in Breitenbrunn, where they restored a 17th-century Streckhof.
In 1970, Kumpf also ventured into the film genre and stood in front of the camera together with Helmut Qualtinger in Bernhard Wicki’s feature film “The Wrong Weight” in Hungary. In the course of shooting, some painterly works were created for individual film scenes. At the beginning of the 1970s, he made his first sculptural works, including a sandstone fountain.
This was also the time when the first “asocial” were born, which can also be seen in numerous of his paintings. Kumpf’s website said regarding her: “In this sense, anti-social is not meant negatively and means that he exists as a loner alongside society.” At the same time, the first lithographs and etchings were created. In addition, there are always children’s books that Kumpf illustrated: for example Dietmar Schönherr’s “Ruzzitu” or works by Thomas Brezina (including “Dicke Freunde” or “Abu”).
Numerous collaborations and joint projects followed: Together with Gerhard Tötschinger, he created the puzzle book “The Ring of the Last Emperor”. His red sun, which has become characteristic, can also be found on the cover of Toni Stricker’s record “Erdverbunden”. He drew the cartoon characters for the ORF production “We Were Twelve – The Babenbergers”.
Kumpf also expressed his love for Burgenland in 1980 by participating in a campaign to save the “Lange Lacke” nature reserve: his painting “Löffler über der Lange Lacke” was sold as a poster and became one of the artist’s best-known works. With the first stamp he designed in 1983, he also paid homage to his chosen federal state (“evening sun over Burgenland”), and other series followed, including ones for the 1996 Olympic Games by Alfred Komarek, in the following years the books “Hommage an Österreich” and “Sternbilder” were published, also with texts by the author.
Kumpf began to inscribe himself on the Viennese cityscape in 1989 when he was commissioned to design steel sculptures for the Viennese “Advent Magic”, which remained part of the concept for 16 years. The first of many large bronze sculptures in Vienna’s Schönbrunn Zoo was a hippopotamus in 1990, followed by pandas and a “frog prince”. A bronze elephant was set up in front of the Natural History Museum in Vienna in 2004.
In the 1990s, Kumpf turned to architecture. For example, he designed the Göttlesbrunn motorway station including a restaurant and hotel, and for the Vienna waterworks he designed the forecourt of the Bisamberg water intake drive as a sculpture park. In 1993 he created the stage design for “The Gypsy Baron” for the Mörbisch Lake Festival. With the Stegersbach thermal baths, he implemented another major order.
In 1990 Gottfried was appointed professor. In 2003, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the WWF in Austria, he received the “Living Planet” medal from the then director of Schönbrunn Zoo, Helmut Pechlaner. In 2005 he received the “Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, 1st Class”.