Robert Zeppel-Sperl studied in the early 1960s at the Academy of Fine Arts under Maximilian Melcher and Max Weiler. In 1968 he experienced his first great success at the legendary Secession exhibition "Realities". Initiated by Otto Breicha, the exhibition, together with five other artists (Wolfgang Herzig, Martha Jungwirth, Kurt Kocherscheidt, Peter Pongratz, Franz Ringel) illustrated the upheaval in Austrian painting at the time towards a new, expanded concept of art.
Robert Zeppel-Sperl integrated in his painting influences from Old Masters such as Hieronymus Bosch, but also contemporary elements of the international art world, which turned away from the then prevailing abstraction towards a new representationalism. He was also interested in the world of ideas of comics.
The subjects of flower power, including the Beatles and permissive female characters, but also socially critical themes were found in his pictorial world, as well as the attitude to life and the carefreeness of the 1960s and early 1970s.
Contacts with new places and cultures each brought changes in his artistic work, which is characterized by an enormous wealth of ideas. Thus it was the encounter with Balinese culture and religion that led Robert Zeppel-Sperl to deal with new motifs but also new techniques from 1989 onwards.
