Alfons Walde

Who was Alfons Walde?

Alfons Walde, an Austrian from Kitzbühel in Tyrol, was the first artist to successfully bring skiing as a subject into painting. These sporting scenes together with his winter landscapes and farming images, rendered in a unique tempera style with impastose colouring, complemented his other artistic gifts as both an architect and graphic artist. Many of his paintings can be seen in the Museum gallery in Kitzbühel.

Alfons Walde produced his first watercolour and tempera paintings during his schooldays. From 1910 to 1914 Walde studied architecture at the Technische Hochshule in Vienna. At the same time he continued 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.

In 1911 Walde had his first exhibition in Innsbruck; and in 1913 presented four farm pictures at the prestigious Vienna Secession exhibition. From 1914 to 1917 he actively participated in World War I as a Tyrolean Kaiserchutze in the high mountains.