Alfons Walde

Walde monument in Kitzbühel

Alfons Walde (born February 8, 1891 in Oberndorf (then St. Johann in Tirol ), † December 11, 1958 in Kitzbühel ) was an Austrian painter and architect .

Influenced by Secessionism , he created still lifes , landscapes and scenes from rural life . Alfons Walde became internationally known primarily for his posters with winter landscapes and winter sports motifs from 1920 to 1938. His images shaped Tyrol as a winter sports country.

life and work

Alfons Walde was born on February 8, 1891 as the son of the teacher Franz Walde and Maria Walde (née Ritzer) in the then St. Johann district of Oberndorf in Tyrol. In 1892 the family moved to Kitzbühel, where Alfons' father became the headmaster. From 1903 he attended secondary school in Innsbruck, which he graduated in 1910 with excellent success. At this school he showed his artistic skills for the first time in the form of watercolor and tempera pictures in the style of Expressionism.

From 1910 to 1914 Walde studied at the Technical University of Vienna . At that time he mostly stayed with his aunt in Kirchdorf in Upper Austria. He painted the farms, fields and gardens with soft, warm watercolors. He exhibited his pictures for the first time in 1911 and 1913 in the Czichna bookstore and in the Vienna Secession . Between 1914 and 1918 he enlisted as a one-year volunteer with the Austrian state rifle regiment and was promoted to cadet in 1915 and later to ensign . His area of ​​work was in South Tyrol on Monte Piano and Pasubio as well as in Bosnia . He received several awards for his work in the First World War .

In 1917 he returned from Bosnia as a lieutenant in the troops then known as Kaiserschützen and began to study again in 1918. Back in Kitzbühel at the end of 1918, he painted oil paintings such as the Kitzbühel Fair or going to church . But he also created nude drawings such as bathers at the Schwarzsee or naked back nude . In 1919 he became friends with the Viennese working-class poet Alfons Petzold, who had moved to Kitzbühel, and later portrayed him. In 1920 he exhibited pictures again for the first time after the war in Vienna. In 1924 he won the 1st and 2nd prize in the competition of the Tyrolean State Transport Office. In 1925 he married Hilda Lackner from Kitzbühel. In the same year took part in the 4th Biennale Romana d'Arte in Rome and received the Julius Reich Artist Foundation Prize . In 1927 he planned the two station buildings for the newly built Hahnenkammbahn , which still exist today despite two modifications to the lift. For the arrival hall of Innsbruck's first main train station , he designed two large landscape pictures with the symbolic juxtaposition and under the title of North Tyrol and South Tyrol , but a design by Rudolf Stolz was preferred. In 1928 he painted Einsame Alm (Berghof, 1928) , oil on cardboard, which found a buyer in 2009 for a price of € 390,000. In 1929 he built his mountain house on the Hahnenkamm, which became a social meeting place.

From then on he had his pictures printed in his own publishing house as art prints and postcards and thus marketed his works of art to the general public. After divorcing his first wife, Walde married Lilly Walter in 1930 and had a daughter. In 1932 he painted pictures such as “Kaiser-Hochalm” or “Spätwinter”. In that year he also designed his first official Tyrolean poster. In 1938 the Gestapo came to the house several times and he was imprisoned for two months for defamation. In 1940 he married for the third time, Ida Troppschuh, geb. Rossipal.

From 1946 he devoted himself intensively to his work on architectural projects (mountain station hotels on the Hahnenkamm, 1948 plans for a new schoolhouse and 1953 design for his parents' tomb) and on his 65th birthday in 1956 received the title of Professor . On December 11, 1958, Walde, who had long been suffering from heart disease, suffered a heart attack in his sister's house and died.

Walde himself founded the art publishing house Alfons Walde in 1923 , which sold his most popular pictures as postcards and later also as art prints. He painted many of the most popular motifs himself. “This increased image production brought him not only the accusation of being a mass painter, but also wide international popularity.” (Günther Moschig in Walde 2005, p. 160). In addition, from 1930 onwards, numerous unauthorized copies, imitations and forgeries were made , against which Walde took legal action, but which still populate the market today.

For a long time it was little known that Walde also created a rich erotic oeuvre with numerous nudes, some of which have only recently been published. In the act “Seated with Crossed Leg”, for example, he managed to create a mysteriously erotic atmosphere through the lack of clarity of drawing and color.

In 2015, two Waldes plants were also sold for considerable sums. The work Einsamer Berghof , oil on cardboard, created around 1934, found a new buyer for € 350,000, while the painting Tiroler Bergdorf (Auracher Kirchl) from 1944 changed hands for € 400,000. Most recently, the famous ascent was sold in an auction house for 760,000 euros in 2016 .

tourism

Walde was very interested in the development of tourism in Kitzbühel. In addition to some posters, he also designed the chamois and the lettering in 1933, both of which are still in use today as the protected word and image mark “Kitzbühel”. In 1950 he designed posters and the red clothing (hood and sweater) for the ski instructors for the ski school, which were subsequently called "Red Devils".

In the city building department he campaigned for a more colorful cityscape, since all the houses were previously white and gray. Even today the facades in the center are colored according to his ideas.

Museums

• Galerie Alfons Walde in the Museum Kitzbuehel - after enlargement, 60 paintings (mostly on loan from the Walde-Berger family) and over 100 graphics and drawings by Alfons Walde are shown.
• You can find pictures by Alfons Walde in many museums.

literature

• Stefan Üner: The intimate look. Alfons Waldes nudes , in: Alfons Walde - nudes , gallery at the Albertina. Zetter, Vienna March 4–20. April 2019, pp. 8-13, ISBN 978-3-9504662-4-9
• Gert Ammann u. a .: Alfons Walde (1891–1958). 5th edition. Tyrolia, Innsbruck 2005, ISBN 3-7022-1401-1 .
• Exhibition catalog Alfons Walde. Leopold Museum , Vienna 2006 (with contributions by Gerd Ammann, Carl Kraus and Rudolf Leopold)

Web links

Commons : Alfons Walde  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Alfons Walde in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Alfons Walde in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
• Galerie Alfons Walde in the Museum Kitzbuehel
• Art publisher Alfons Walde
• Stolen forest painting resurfaced
• ABOUT THE COUNTRY : Egger-Lienz / Walde / Berg - three painters, three areas
• Alfons Walde. In: Galerie Martin Suppan. Retrieved February 8, 2016 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alfons Walde biography , aufonswalde.com
2. ↑ Carl Kraus , Hannes Obermair (ed.): Myths of dictatorships. Art in Fascism and National Socialism - Miti delle dittature. Art nel fascismo e nazionalsocialismo . South Tyrolean State Museum for Cultural and State History Castle Tyrol, Dorf Tirol 2019, ISBN 978-88-95523-16-3 , p. 218–219 (with ill.) .
3. ↑ Alfons Walde - biography and offers - buy and sell. Retrieved January 13, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Alfons Walde - biography and offers - buy and sell. Retrieved January 13, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Exhibition in the gallery "Westlicht" 2014/15: Schaulust ( Memento of the original from January 19, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Erotic art epochs: Alfons Walde's striking eroticism  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ The Kitzbühel logo
8. ↑ The history of the ski school , Rote Teufel.
9. ↑ Waldes Lust - The painter from Kitzbühel . culture Monday from January 15, 2018 on ORF.
10. ^ Helmut Oehler: Alfons Walde. About the rise of a strong Tyrolean. ( Memento of the original from November 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Alpenmagazin , St. Gallen, CH.