Franz Grabmayr for the Vienna Opera Ball

Franz Grabmayr is among the most important representatives of contemporary Austrian art. His connection to the Vienna State Opera dates back to the 1970s, when he expanded his graphic work with his Tanzbilder (dance paintings). These important sheets of his oeuvre were created during rehearsals in the ballet hall and in the evening during the performances from the stand. His large-format oil painting Rote Felsenwand (Red Rock Wall), created decades later, is now the basis for the poster motif of the 67^th Vienna Opera Ball. Rote Felsebwand is the largest work from Franz Grabmayr’s late oeuvre and occupies a special place in his body of work as one of his very last oil paintings. No fees or surcharges will be added at the auction. The highest bidder can also look forward to a personal guided tour of the original studio rooms with the artist's son, Jakob Grabmayr, who manages his father's estate, and a dinner together in Franz Grabmayr's favourite restaurant. The proceeds from this auction, as well as other donations relating to the ball, will go to the charity Österreich hilft Österreich (Austria helps Austria). You can find more information at → wiener-staatsoper.at

Franz Grabmayr’s work for the 67^th Vienna Opera Ball: Rote Felsenwand (Red Rock Wall)

Rote Felsenwand is without a doubt one of Franz Grabmayr’s most important masterpieces. The motif belongs to the group of paintings that the artist realised in a quarry in the Waldviertel at the age of 82. Rote Felsenwand is also one of the Carinthian artist’s last major paintings, as his physical impairment following operations on his spine and hips meant that he was no longer able to paint monumental works like this one on-site in his old age.

In his later work, Franz Grabmayr rediscovered the rich colours of nature. The fact that the impasto and vehemently applied colour does not cover the entire canvas is not a sign of unfinished work. The empty spaces where the white grounding of the canvas flashes up and frames the glistening storm of colour that takes place inside the painting form the neutral background that Henri Matisse loved as much as Paul Cezanne at the beginning of the 20^th century: it is this aesthetic of the perfectly unfinished that characterises this later masterpiece by Grabmayr.

The high degree of abstraction of this weighty painting only reveals a landscape and nature-like quality in the distribution of the colour masses: the earthy pigment at the lower edge, the radiant blue with the dazzling white clouds in the upper third of the picture. In between, the picture is dominated by the lush green – the imprint of the wildly sprawling bushes – and the glooming red of the quarry. Rapidly thrown onto the canvas with a trowel and palette knife, the masses of colour also lend the picture its compositional stability. It is no coincidence that this landscape drama is reminiscent of Vincent Van Gogh’s late work, his last painting in Auvers.

The path that the artist, born in Carinthia in 1927, travelled from his childhood and youth on a mountain farm may have been long and arduous. Artistically, he was always consistently focused on the goal of countering the strong and dynamic nature with an equally strong and dynamic world of colour. In this way, one of the last important landscape painters of our time became one of the most radical and important material artists, who achieved the metamorphosis from image to object with his painting. This metamorphosis is due to the high level of abstraction of the impasto, heaped clumps, the centimetre-thick layers and crustily piles of colour.

Rote Felsenwand – this high point and end point of the Carinthian artist’s extensive oeuvre – once again conveys the intense impression of the powerful energy of nature, which Franz Grabmayr always understood as permanent change.

Prof. Dr. Klaus Albrecht Schröder

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IBAN: AT06 2011 1800 8076 0700
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Reason for transfer: Opernball-Charity-Kunstauktion 2025

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Caritas, the recipient of the donation, is approved as a donation beneficiary (Reg. No. SO 1126). When purchasing a piece of artwork at this auction, it is possible to claim 50% of the purchase price as a donation with the tax authorities. For private individuals, the relevant donation notification to the Ministry of Finance will be handled by the charitable organisation in accordance with the legal amendments made in 2017. In addition to your name (as entered in the Central Population Register), your date of birth is also required for this purpose. Further information can be found under Ministry of Finance/deductibility of donations from 1 January 2017: https://www.bmf.gv.at/kampagnen/spendenservice.html

Collection of the artwork after agreement
Ulrike Mbeki
Dorotheum GmbH & Co KG
Dorotheergasse 17, 1010 Vienna
Mobile: +43 664 888 444 95
Telephone: +43 1 515 60-105
ulrike.mbeki@dorotheum.at