Alfons Walde (8 February 1891 – 11 December 1958) was an Austrian artist and

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Art

Walde is known best for his winter landscapes and farming images, especially

skiing Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee ( ...

and sporting scenes, painted in

tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...

impasto ''Impasto'' is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provide ...

ed oil paint. Many of his paintings can be seen in the Museum gallery in Kitzbühel.

Life and career

Walde was born in Oberndorf (near Kitzbühel) in

Tyrol Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...

. He produced his first

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

and tempera paintings during his school days. From 1910 to 1914 he studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, while continuing his education as a painter. In the Danubian metropolis he moved in artistic circles that included Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, and he became influenced by

Ferdinand Hodler Ferdinand Hodler (March 14, 1853 – May 19, 1918) was one of the best-known Swiss painters of the nineteenth century. His early works were portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings in a realistic style. Later, he adopted a personal form of ...

. In 1911 Walde had his first exhibition in Innsbruck, and in 1913 presented four farm pictures at the prestigious

Vienna Secession The Vienna Secession (german: Wiener Secession; also known as ''the Union of Austrian Artists'', or ''Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs'') is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austr ...

exhibition. From 1914 to 1917 he actively participated in World War I as a Tyrolean Kaiserschütze in the high mountains. After returning to Kitzbühel, he fully devoted himself to painting and participated again in exhibitions of the Secession and the

Vienna Künstlerhaus The Künstlerhaus in Vienna’s 1st district has accommodated the Künstlerhaus Vereinigung since 1868. It is located in the Ringstrassenzone in between Akademiestraße, Bösendorferstraße and Musikvereinsplatz. The building was erected betw ...

throughout the 1920s. He was active as a

graphic art A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional, i.e. produced on a flat surface.

ist, and beginning in 1926 designed many posters. By around 1928 Walde had finally found his own characteristic style, one that gave expression to both the Tyrolean mountain scenery – particularly the living winter landscapes – and its robust people through the use of highly reduced drawings and pastel colouring. Throughout the rest of his artistic career his work stayed with the subject of his homeland, and retained the same distinct native style. Alfons Walde died of heart failure on 11 December 1958 in Kitzbühel.

External links

Biography

* 1891 births 1958 deaths 20th-century Austrian painters Austrian male painters 20th-century Austrian male artists {{Austria-painter-stub