Hammerstiel, Robert

Robert Hammerstiel was born on February 18, 1933 to German emigrants in Werschetz in Banat, and spent his childhood there during the war years. He survived the expulsion and expropriation of the German population and was transported to a camp. Arriving in Austria at the end of the 1940s, he trained as a baker and learned to draw and paint from his father, an icon painter. An Austrian citizen since 1954, he won the award for painting in a competition in 1958 and was given the opportunity to study art at the Vienna Art School.