Walter Pichler - vendere e comprare opere
1 October 1936, Deutschnofen (South Tirol) - 16 July 2012, Vienna (Austria)
Walter Pichler was an Austrian sculptor, architect, object artist and book designer.
Pichler’s family was forced to leave their homeland under the terms of the South Tyrol Option Agreement. They moved to Innsbruck, where he acquired his initial artistic skills at the Arts and Crafts School. He graduated from the Vienna University of Applied Art in 1955. From the 1960s onward, Pichler’s artistic oeuvre moved between sculpture and architecture, although the transition points between the different disciplines were fluid. He stayed in Paris for an extended period in 1960 and travelled to New York and Mexico in 1963.
Pichler’s first exhibition was in 1963, which he organised with Hans Hollein in a gallery in Vienna. During his initial period, he created objects, sculptures, installations and designs for utopian cities. He shared with Hollein a visionary plan for ‘liberated’ architecture, and acquired particular prominence with his Portable Living Room and Large Room sculptures.
Other exhibitions followed soon afterwards: in 1967 he was represented at an exhibition by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, at the Biennale in Paris and during the Documenta in Kassel. Until its death, he lived and worked in a farmhouse in South Burgenland, which he had purchased in 1972. He still held on to the studio in Vienna, although it remained largely unused. Averse to releasing his works for exhibition, the sculptures he produced at the farm were not sold, but stored in houses that Pichler built specifically for this purpose. They included the House for the Torso and the Skullcaps, the House for Scales and the House for the Big Cross.
It sometimes took him decades to complete his works, from the first draft to the finished sculpture. The artist proceeded with immense care and meticulousness, producing innumerable sketches and models and often using a variety of materials for a single piece.
Walter Pichler was awarded the Grand Austrian State Prize in 1985.
He passed away on 16 July 2002 in Vienna.