Artur Nikodem

_{Trient 1870 - 1940 Innsbruck}

Artur Nikodem was born in Trento in 1870. According to the artist, Artur Nikodem attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich against the wishes of his parents, where he was a student of Franz von Defregger and W. Kaulbach. He was discharged from military service at his own request in 1890 and returned to his parents in Trento. There he started working at the post office in 1891. In 1893 he moved to Merano and his first artistic activities can be traced to this date. He joined the “Meraner Künstlerbund” and his pictures were regularly on display at the group’s exhibitions. In 1908 he moved to Innsbruck with his family where he stayed until the end of his life.
Nikodem’s œuvre is an important element of Tirolean modern art during the inter-war period and, although it is greatly influenced by Munich's art trends, it is also indebted to the tradition of Tirolean landscape painting. Although Artur Nikodem was one of the most successful and most reputable Tirolean artists of the ’twenties, his art was labeled as “degenerate” by the Nazis and after the Anschluss of Austria with the German Reich the artist lived very reclusively without any opportunity to display his works.