Johannes Wanke

A talented child, Johannes Wanke had his first exhibition at an early age and subsequently received his first award. From 1940, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wien (Vienna). After an interruption of several years due to World War II, he completed his studies in 1949 with a diploma with distinction, and received the State Prize of the Academy of Fine Arts in the following year. For the next decades he worked as a freelance artist and had numerous exhibitions at home and abroad.

Wanke was appointed professor in 1977 and was twice awarded the Austrian State Prize (1950, 1961), as well as the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art. From 1968, he directed the symposia and musical summer courses in Neumarkt an der Raab.

Wanke lived and worked in southern part of the Burgenland province since 1981. Its landscape, as well as that of the Bretagne, inspired him to numerous works. In 1993, his adopted home honored him with the Great Medal of Honor of the Province of Burgenland.

Initially, Wanke devoted himself primarily to expressionist woodcuts. Because of a war injury he had to give up his plan to become a pianist. He transformed, however, the works of classical composers - from Beethoven to Schönberg - into pictures in numerous graphic cycles. Later, watercolors and finally oil paintings in strong colors were the focus of his artistic activities. Wanke’s works can be found today mainly in renowned museums and galleries in Austria, but also in various private collections.

Wanke and Maximilian Melcher jointly submitted a gouache titled Departure to the Olympics. This particular work could not be identified, but at least Wanke had already created a woodcut with Olympic motifs in 1940. Later, the two worked together again. In 1955, for example, both created large mosaic pictures of children for apartment buildings on Wien’s Aichholzgasse.