Max Frey

Max Frey was an Austrian landscape and portrait painter as well as a design draftsman for Gobelins. After World War I he learned fresco technique at the Vienna School of Applied Arts and attended the art academy as well. Study trips took him to various European countries. Frey and his later brother-in-law ran a joint studio from 1925, and in 1932 he became a member of the Vienna Künstlerhaus. He was later a stage artist for various theaters and the Vienna People’s Opera. After World War II, he was a teacher at the Graphic Education and Research Institute in Wien (Vienna) and was commissioned to paint numerous public buildings. In 1949 Frey was named a professor at the Wien School of Applied Arts.

The submitted work The Ski-Jump is probably Die Sprungschanze in Hadersdorf-Weidlingau (The Ski-Jump in Hadersdorf-Weidlingau) from 1940. The painting in oil on canvas is housed in the Wien Museum collection. Built in 1936, the so-called “Wienerwaldschanze” later allowed jumps of up to 70 meters. Due to war and weather conditions, the ski jump was rarely used and eventually fell into disrepair.