The Viennese painter, graphic artist and sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka, who died in 2009, is regarded a committed, critical and provocative neo-expressionist.
Fascism, violence, war and the suffering man are topics that Hrdlicka dedicated his powerful-expressive but always figurative art to - the unsparing and revealing depiction of these topics fulfil a humanist purpose. Alfred Hrdlicka, who again and again brought up political questions, kept the memories of injustices alive, for instance with his Vienna "Monument against War and Fascism" (1988), which shows a Jew sweeping the street. Erotic topics make for a second pole in Alfred Hrdlicka's oeuvre. His drastic depictions of the love act caused quite some controversies in more prudish days.
Alfred Hrdlicka, who was active as professor at several German and Austrian universities, showed works on international exhibitions, for instance in Paris (Musée de la Seita), Budapest (Budapest Galerie) and Schwäbisch Hall ("Alfred Hrdlicka. Bildhauer, Maler, Zeichner", Kunsthalle Würth, 2008).