Ringel, Franz. – 18 Radierungen. 1966/67,

On of only 30 numbered copies. Seventeens publication with original graphics of the Salzburger Landessammlung Rupertinum. Franz Ringel (born April 1, 1940 in Graz; † October 28, 2011 there) was an Austrian painter who lived and worked in Vienna. Franz Ringel was born in Graz as the son of a horse groom and a laundress. He was placed in foster care at the age of nine. His foster father was a Styrian regional councilor and high school inspector. His wife Margarete was a French woman who encouraged Ringel’s artistic talent and aroused his interest in literature. Franz Ringel attended secondary school with the later choreographer Johann Kresnik. – Ringel graduated from the Graz School of Applied Arts from 1955 to 1959 with a focus on ceramics. He then studied for a year with Hans Knesl at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna and from 1960 to 1965 with Albert Paris Gütersloh at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Franz Ringel was a founding member of the Realities group in 1968, with which he caused a stir with an exhibition of the same name at the Vienna Secession. He preferred to paint human figures that could represent motifs from the depths of the human unconscious or classical Greek literature. Many people find the countless limbs of his puppet characters repulsive. Strong, thickly applied colors form part of the effect of his pictures. – In 1980 he changed his signature from Franz Ringel to M. J. M. Ringel, with the three letters standing for the three most important women in Ringel’s life. These were his foster mother Margarete, his biological mother Juliane and his wife Maria. A few years after Maria’s death in 1983, the book Seventy-Eight Pictures for Maria was written, which was named one of the most beautiful books in Austria. – Numerous exhibitions, primarily in Austria or with Austrian organizers, made his work known. – After his death, Ringel was buried in an honorary grave in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 40, number 182), which is a special honour in Austria, only real important personalities distinction.