Retrospective of jewellery and objects by Fritz Maierhofer

Fritz Maierhofer is one of the leading Austrian jewellery and object artists and this show includes jewellery and sculptures from the 1960s until the present day.

With his avant-garde understanding of jewellery, he creates unique objects from acrylic, glass, steel, pewter, aluminium, and the synthetic material Corian. The artist, who revealed a penchant for sculpture at an early age, was influenced by England’s revolutionary pop culture in the 1960s and 1970s.

Maierhofer’s first works from this period are captivating due to their unusual combination of the materials acrylic and metal. Brooches and rings from his early career lie on square plinths and frames held by steel wires. These three-dimensional works are continued in the works of subsequent decades, during which the artist realized sculptures for squares, gardens, and parks. In his recent sculptural works, he initially creates rectangular models from folded paper, which he then transfers to colorful metal surfaces, thereby generating three-dimensional effects.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a richly illustrated catalog in German and English, published by the Arnoldsche Verlagsanstalt, with a foreword by Christoph Thun-Hohenstein as well as contributions by Karl Bollmann and Graziella Folchini Grassetto.