Information:

As Hundertwasser criticised ugly soulless prefabricated buildings in architecture, so he saw that stamps were becoming more and more ugly. In 1975 he approached the responsible minister with the idea that once a year there should be an issue of stamps designed by Austrian artists. The Austrian postal service began in the same year the series "Modern Art from Austria" with Hundertwasser's "Spiral Tree".Until 2006 appeared 32 postage stamps by Austrian artists in this series. Hundertwasser and Prof. Dr. Walter Koschatzky, former Director of the Albertina (State Collection of Graphic Art), Vienna. chose the artists on behalf of the Austrian Post until their dead, Hundertwasser additionally supervised the collaborations between the artists involved and the engraver, Wolfgang Seidel. Hundertwasser chose the costy technique of a combination of screen-process and photogravure printing and all of his stamps were engraved by the renowned master engraver, Wolfgang Seidel. For the development of this postage stamp Hundertwasser picked out the "Spiral tree" from a series of five watercolours, which he had specially painted therefore in 1974.