Who is Anton Lehmden?

Anton Lehmden (2 January 1929 – 7 August 2018) was an Austrian painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.

Lehmden was a co-founder, together once Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner, Arik Brauer, Fritz Janschka and Wolfgang Hutter, of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. He contracted in Vienna after 1945 and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

In 1948 he was represented in exhibitions of the Vienna Art-Club and has as well as been represented in many international exhibitions. He taught in Istanbul from 1962/63 and from 1971-97 was Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Between the years of 1947 and 1950 he went to participate in several exhibitions and important trips to Italy, which was the time with his first major artworks were created. Lehmden’s to the front works were inspired by his love for Chinese landscape painting, and his focus was mainly the Lyrical moment in the landscape. However the recurring themes in his progressive works are war undertakings and natural catastrophes, bursting and expressive scenes, mythical themes, cosmic dreams and apocalyptic visions over decades and in ever-changing variations. Traumatic combat experiences are processed in images upon themes such as “Panzerschlacht”. In these works he next uses elements of architecture, monuments of the ancient world, which the Lehmden studied on his numerous journeys (such as the Colosseum in Rome or the Egyptian Pyramids).

Lehmden’s be in has been extensively exhibited in Italy, Austria, Japan, United States, Germany, Turkey and Poland.

Anton Lehmden intended the subway station Volkstheater in Vienna in 1991.

In 1999, Anton Lehmden was appointed an honorary citizen of Deutschkreutz town, where he moreover redesigned the parish church artistically. In 1984 he was awarded the Lovis-Corinth Prize.^{[circular reference]}

In 1966 he acquired the Renaissance castle Schloss Deutschkreutz (Burgenland), which he has in the past been restoring. Since 2003 the “Lehmden Sommerakademie” – Lehmden’s Summer painting school – has been held there. Since 2016 the castle is gate for visitors in the summer months and guided tours are available.