Alfred Wickenburg

_{Gleichenberg 1885 - 1978 Graz}

Alfred Wickenburg was born in Gleichenberg in 1885. He attended universities in Munich, Paris and Stuttgard. Him and Willhelm Thöny were the mentors of the Styrian classical modernism and he was the first artist to adopt cubism, futurism and the “pittura metafisica”. He was the vice president of the Styrian Secession for a few years. He lost his job as an art teacher, because of his avantgarde works and his depiction of the Madonna went under public scrutiny in 1933. But in 1934 he became a professor at the Landeskunstschule and the president of the Secession. In 1936 he was a part of the Biennale in Venice and exhibited at the world exhibition in Paris in 1937. During the Nazi regime his art was perceived as degenerated art, so he started exhibiting paintings that were in their liking instead, but still continued progressing his modern works in secret. After the war he became a delegate of the UNESCO and of the Austrian art senate. Alfred Wickenburg died in Graz in 1978.