Fritz Wotruba

In his work, he increasingly dissolves figurative components in favor of geometrical abstraction with the shape of the cube as the basic form.

Adolf was an alcoholic and violent, often beating his sons and his wife - as described in the auto-biography of Elias Canetti, Das Augenspiel, who befriended him in 1933, writing a very positive assessment of his work in 1954.

His eldest brother was imprisoned for armed robbery and murder, and died in prison at Stein on the Danube.

Fritz, the youngest, was spared from his father's wrath but was kept under close surveillance by the police due to the police records of his three elder brothers, and Canetti believed that his fascination with sculpting in stone was a form of psychological defence against his traumatic childhood.

Canetti :"..it consisted of two big vaults supporting the Stadtbahn trestle; in one stood figures that would have got in his way while he was working in the other.