Contact: georg.deutsch@gmail.com
Development and Design: CASC
The nine biographical sketches may be reproduced elsewhere only with the written agreement of the author B.P. Besser: Bruno.besser@oeaw.ac.at. All other material at this Web site, text and images may be reproduced elsewhere without further agreement but only with an explicit indication of source.
“Austrian Space & Rocket Pioneers” was an exhibition organized by ESA’s Fine Arts Club at the Unispace III Conference 1999 in Vienna. (Third United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Vienna July 1999 in the Austria Center, located adjacent to the United Nations Vienna in the Vienna International Centre). The exhibition included paintings by Georg B. Deutsch and biographical sketches by Bruno P. Besser. This very website provides a similar information as the brochure issued together with the exhibition in 1999.
The nine paintings are now in the premises of the FFG- Austrian Agency for Aerospace (ALR – Agentur für Luft- und Raumfahrt of the FFG) in Vienna (http://www.ffg.at/weltraum)
The author of the nine biographical articles Bruno P. Besser works at the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and works also in the field of history of Austrian space science. Bruno.besser@oeaw.ac.at . His articles also are also published at the web site of AIAA (the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics): http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=427#n1
The nine portraits are painted by Georg B. Deutsch with acrylic carbon fibre canvases as painting surface. Working on this black and somewhat shiny surface gives an unusual and in the beginning more difficult painting feeling, producing partly unexpected effects in comparison to white textile canvases. The carbon canvases are attached to traditional stretchers in the format 85 x 50 cm.
ACRYLIC AND OIL PAINTINGS ON CARBON FIBRE (by Fritz Gampe - Fritz.Gampe@gmx.net )
“Technique”- stemming from the Greek word for ‘fine arts’ , includes also the ability and the knowledge how to perform the art. Two elements must be combined to form a piece of art: the material and the idea.
Painting, one of the most elementary and oldest arts of mankind, started by applying natural colours to natural materials. Stone, bone and wood were first used as Malgrund, the surface onto which the colour was applied. Later, by means of technology, woven canvases from wool, silk or cotton found their way to the artists’ ateliers.
These so called ‘natural fibres’ were the convenient Malgrund for centuries and for generations of artists. This idea could change now with the advent of so called ‘technical fibres’, such as glass, aramid and carbon fibres. Although these fibres are quite well known as a high tech material for satellites, aircraft and racing vehicles, their place and role in “fine arts” is still to be discovered.
The carbon fibres were offered for the nine paintings in a first attempt to assess the potential of these ‘technical fibres’ for paintings in oil and acrylic. Its black and rough surface resembles somewhat the darkness of space – into which the visionary Austrian space and rocket pioneers have shed some light.