Wilhelm Thony (1888, Graz-1949, New York City) is considered one of Austria’s most influential painters and graphic designors. Thony began his art studies in Graz, Austria drawing and painting under Anton Marussig. From 1908, Thony studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts under Gabriel Hackl and Angelo Jank and became a member of the Munich Secession. He also studied music and even received an offer from the Munich Opera House because of his extraordinary voice.

In 1915 he was drafted and worked as an artist on the battlefield from 1917 until the end of the war. In 1918, Thony returned to Munich but left for Graz in 1923 for financial and political reasons. There he founded the Grazer Secession whose members included Fritz Silberbauer, Alfred Wickenburg, Axel Leskoschek, Hans Wagula and Hans Mauracher and others.

Thony’s early work such as The Bridge (1925), was characteristically melancholy and emotional in a way that is reminiscent in the expressiveness of Edvard Munch. Thony used thick and strong colors often creating a three-dimensional effect, but soon after his move to Paris in 1931, his palette became increasingly lighter and his motifs changed with his new surroundings. His elegant, delicate and almost dream-like watercolors of this period are considered some of the greatest work of his career and in fact the best known of Thony’s subjects are the cityscapes of Paris and New York ( Paris, Ile de la Cité ,c.1935 and New York at Night, c.1936).

Thony and his wife emigrated to New York City in 1938 where his works were exhibited frequently. Shortly before a large collective exhibition in March of 1948, a New York warehouse fire destroyed hundreds of Thony's paintings and graphics, which represented most of his life's work. Homesick and severely depressed, Thony died the following year.

Museums: Grazer Neuen Gallerie, Graz; Austrian Gallery Belvedere, Vienna; Museum of Military History, Vienna; Albertina Palace, Vienna.

Source: German Wikipedia; Gerald Weinpolter Gallery, Vienna; Galerie Albertina, Vienna.

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