Karl-Heinz Hammermüller

This is Karl-Heinz Hammermüller from Kleinzell, Lilienfeld, Lower Austria, a bookbinder by trade. He is known and recognized as one of the best in the business and I met him in Florence where he was the keynote speaker at the Conference on Gilding and Inking Edges. Karl-Heinz is permanently agitated and aggressively motivated: when he walks, he pushes people out of his way, shouts at them and, if they are visible minorities, he tells them to go back to "their country". His family secretly puts ground up Extraveral pills into the "Primitivo di Puglia", the only wine he drinks (the "ripe plum, vanilla, and tobacco"  bouquet hides the bitter taste) as he refuses to go to see somebody about his condition. Herr Hammermüller was twice detained for disorderly conduct and once arrested for causing a disturbance. He lives with his wife, two daughters and a pet Bolivian Python in a large house-workshop on the outskirts of town (they also have two dogs).