This striking 6-schilling Austrian stamp, issued in 1978, features a surreal self-portrait by the renowned painter Rudolf Hausner (1914–1995), one of Austria’s leading postwar artists and a co-founder of the “Vienna School of Fantastic Realism.” The artwork depicts Hausner’s face bathed in rich, otherworldly hues, blending realism and dreamlike abstraction—typical of his style that explored human psychology and identity. The stamp’s vivid color gradients evoke both dawn and dusk, symbolizing introspection and timeless self-awareness.

A masterful fusion of art and philately, this issue stands out as a high point in Austria’s modern art commemoratives of the 1970s.