Helmut Leherb

Leherb thus found access to this circle of artists and organised various exhibitions together with other representatives of this art movement, for example with Anton Lehmden, Rudolf Hausner and Wolfgang Hutter.

From 1959 to 1963, works of art were created in Viennese parks that still exist today: The central motifs that can be found in many of his paintings are his own person, that of his wife, the painter Lotte Profohs (b.

[4] In 1964, Leherb was nominated for the Venice Biennale with his Time Destruction Manifesto, but his participation was prevented by the new Minister of Education Theodor Piffl-Perčević (ÖVP) after a government reshuffle.

The German magazine "Stern" put the scandal on the front page: "Surrealist Leherb: no white mice for Venice" and was not sparing with outbursts against the "cultural country" Austria.

In 1971 / 1972, Leherb was commissioned by the later "Österreich Werbung" (Austrian National Tourist Office "ANTO") (then still Österreichische Fremdenverkehrswerbung, ÖFVW) to design four posters.

In 1976, the design of the poster for the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck followed: a Greek head, which Leherb provided with a modern crash helmet, glasses and, as a reminder of the limits of competitive sport, a time clock.

In Faenza, Italy, in the early 1980s, Leherb created the "largest faience ever made", a 380-square-metre mosaic for the new building of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, which was opened in 1982, "The Continents", during which he suffered severe health damage from the ceramic dust.

In twelve years of work, an imaginary portrait of the continents Asia, Europe, America, Africa, Antarctica and Australia was created with more than 3500 small ceramic plates.

[citation needed] Leherb on the technique: "One works on brittle, fragile clay plates that are coated with majolica dust, the so-called 'smalt', a glaze consisting mainly of metal oxides mixed with water.

For motifs such as faces, bodies, hands, there was a process of creation that made it necessary for me to move panels up to 25 and 30 times from the six-metre-high scaffolding down to the detail easel without being allowed to touch the surface.