(Oberndorf 1891–1958 Kitzbühel)
“Almen im Schnee” (Trattalm at Kitzbühler Horn), 1932, signed A. Walde, label on the reverse (fragment): Alfons Walde (printed), handwritten by the artist: “Almen im Schnee” (Trattalm am Kitzbühler Horn) 1932 Kitzbühel Tirol, oil on cardboard, 36 x 30 cm, in original artist’s frame

Registered:
Alfons Walde Archive under the no. D-LA-553

Provenance:
Private Collection, Canada

The 1924 landscape painting competition was a stimulus that led to Walde to create simpler, more spacious images of nature. The power of the expressive post-War images is now incorporated into his compositions in its entirety, as is all the heaviness of the natural forms that he perceives. The expansive groups of hills in the urban landscape of Kitzbühel and the barrier presented by the Wilde Kaiser mountain range in the background become demonstrations of the landscape per se. They are primeval and amorphous in their size; their surfaces and volumes invoke a sense of modelled plasticity, yet appear to be balanced due to their immense sensibility. The attributes of this landscape, the houses, the huts, the roofs and shaded areas, are consciously arranged within the composition, and not added in for the sake of effect. The soft painting style, partly using the impasto technique, enables fresh nuances and fresh interplays of light to be created time and again, vibrating above all the natural shapes. For him, landscapes also imply a contrast with the sky. He rarely took the mountains right up to the upper edge of the image, and the intensity of the blue sky always played a role in shaping the image. In his landscapes, Walde heightened the composition, moving from the slightly raised foreground to the deep recess of the middle of the image, through to the monumental mountains in the background, stretching upwards like a backdrop to a stage. When depicting these subjects, he hardly ever designed his compositions to end at the sides of the image. Instead, they look like panoramic vistas: Die Almen im Schnee, the Trattalmen or the many small-scale images featuring alpine huts, overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the snow, are truly present…
Gert Ammann, Alfons Walde, Tyrolia-Verlag, 2001