Austrian-born visionary painter and spiritual ecologist Friedensreich Hundertwasser (born as Friedrich Stowasser; 1928-2000) consistently worked with spiral motifs, primitive forms, spectral colors, and repetitive patterns. Although influenced by other Viennese artists, Hundertwasser was never formally affiliated with any "ism."

Friedensreich Hundertwasser was born Friedrich Stowasser in Vienna on December 15, 1928, of a Jewish mother and a Christian father. His father died in 1929. Hundertwasser was baptized in 1937 and supposedly joined the Hitler Youth Corps in 1941. In 1943 69 of his maternal relatives were deported and killed in Nazi concentration camps. During the war and the Russian occupation Hundertwasser lived in a Viennese cellar with his mother. Decades after the Hitler period he could be seen carrying a satchel containing a passport, foreign currencies, and a portable painting set, among other essentials. Hundertwasser married in 1958, while in Gibraltar, and was subsequently divorced in 1960. In 1962, after spending a year in Japan, he married Juuko...