348 - Valentin Oman* (born 1935 in Finkenstein on Lake Faak)

Valentin Oman* (born 1935 in Finkenstein on Lake Faak) View of Finkenstein and Villach with Mittagskogel and the Karawanken mountains mixed media/canvas 50 x 69,5 cm signed Oman SCHÄTZPREIS / ESTIMATE € 4000 - 6000 STARTPREIS / STARTING PRICE € 4000 Valentin Oman was born on December 14, 1935, in southern Carinthia. After completing his secondary education at Marianum Tanzenberg, he studied painting and graphic art under Hilda Schmid-Jesser at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna from 1958 to 1962. In 1963, he completed a specialized course in printmaking under Riko Debenjak at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. Since then, Oman has lived and worked as a freelance artist in Vienna and Finkenstein/Bekštanj. Building upon painting and printmaking, Oman developed a distinctive, heavily layered visual language. His figures emerge through processes of painting over, peeling away, scratching, collaging, and the use of diverse materials; they appear simultaneously corporeal and ghostly. At the center of his work stands the human being—frail yet dignified; the Ecce Homo cycle encapsulates this existential theme. Oman’s work is situated within the context of Austrian post-war art, a period defined by the significance of figuration, materiality, and existential experience. While Werner Berg drew upon the landscape and culture of bilingual Carinthia, Hans Bischoffshausen focused on pared-down pictorial and object structures hovering between abstraction and spatiality. Hans Staudacher developed a form of gestural, informel painting, and Arnulf Rainer radicalized the image through overpainting and densification. For Oman, too, layering became a central technique: the figure remains visible as a trace, yet is simultaneously obscured and violated. Maria Lassnig and Kiki Kogelnik represented contrasting interpretations of the modern human image, whereas Cornelius Kolig and Gotthard Muhr explored themes of the body, material, violence, and vulnerability. Bruno Gironcoli, Fritz Wotruba, and Josef Pillhofer expanded the scope of Austrian post-war modernism through their unique sculptural concepts. In addition to paintings, drawings, and prints, Oman created numerous works for public and sacred spaces. PLEASE NOTE: The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights and platform fee. In the case of normal taxation (marked ° at the estimate), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax is added to the sum of the highest bid, the buyer's premium and platform fee. This amounts to 13% for paintings, drawings, graphic works and sculptures and 20% for photographs and all other items. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.