Walter Pichler is one of the most important visionary artists of the present. Space, proportions, memories, light and, above all, time are the elements from which Pichler created his unique universe of drawings, models, sculptures, installations and architecture. The point of departure for all his works is the drawing, which together with the sculpture spans a subtle narrative network.
Born in South Tyrol in 1936, Pichler graduated from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in 1955. Since the 1960s, he has worked in the border area between sculpture and architecture. Together with Hans Hollein and Raimund Abraham, he developed Visionary Architecture in thin architectural drawings, which was shown in 1967 at the New York Museum of Modern Art. The following year Pichler was invited to the Documenta in Kassel.
In 1971, Pichler bought an old farmhouse in St. Martin an der Raab in Burgenland, where he built dwellings for his sculptures in exactly elaborate proportions, with precisely calculated incidence of light and perfect dimensions.
Pichler reluctantly sent them to exhibitions. He also worked extremely slowly, sometimes taking decades to complete a sculpture, making sketches, precise drawings and plans, and building models.
In 1982 Walter Pichler represented Austria at the Venice Biennale, in 1985 he received the Grand Austrian State Prize for Fine Arts in Vienna.
