Recently Valentin Oman, one of the most important artists of the Austrian postwar generation, celebrated his 90th birthday. His oeuvre is devoted to the exploration of human existence in all its facets: relief-like, fragmentary, and multilayered, Oman’s Ecce homo figures emerge from the surface, situated at the intersection of liturgical tradition, close observation of nature, and the experience of civilization.

Born in 1935 as a Carinthian Slovene and shaped by a Catholic boarding school education, followed by studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Oman developed a distinctive visual language that combines sacred traditions with avant-garde methods. Politically and socially engaged, his work reflects war, ethnic diversity, and political conflicts, without ever losing sight of the humanist dimension of the individual.

This monograph documents Oman’s multifaceted oeuvre in unprecedented breadth and simultaneously functions as a comprehensive catalogue. It brings together essays, analyses, and interviews by a polyphonic authorship, situating Oman’s work from art-historical, theoretical, and personal perspectives.

Ecce Homo presents Valentin Oman not merely as an artist, but as a chronicler of humanity: a body of work that unites sacredness, fragmentariness, and contemporaneity into a coherent artistic vision.