Markus Prachensky

Markus PRACHENSKY was born on March 21, 1932 in Inns­bruck. In 1952 he began study­ing archi­tec­ture at the Acad­e­my of Fine Arts in Vien­na (Welzen­bach­er Mas­ter School), at the same time he stud­ied paint­ing at the acad­e­my from 1953 and took part in the evening files with Her­bert Boeckl. In 1955 Markus Prachen­sky exhib­it­ed for the first time in a group exhi­bi­tion in the “Galerie St. Stephan”, which had recent­ly opened. Togeth­er with Hol­legha, Mikl and Rain­er, he found­ed the leg­endary Galerie St. Stephan group in 1956. In the fol­low­ing years the artist lived alter­nate­ly in Vien­na, Paris, Ham­burg, Berlin and Stuttgart. In 1967 he moved to Los Ange­les, from where he returned to Europe in 1970. From 1972 Prachen­sky lived in Vien­na. Exten­sive trav­els take him again and again to Italy, France, Spain, the USA, Mex­i­co and the Far East. In 1983 he was appoint­ed pro­fes­sor at the Acad­e­my of Fine Arts, where he retired in 2000. In 2001 he was appoint­ed to the Curia for Art of the Aus­tri­an Dec­o­ra­tion of Hon­or for Sci­ence and Art. Prachen­sky has received numer­ous hon­ors and awards, includ­ing the City of Vienna’s Gold­en Medal of Hon­or in 1992, the Aus­tri­an Dec­o­ra­tion of Hon­or for Sci­ence and Art in 2000, the City of Vien­na Prize for Fine Arts in 2003 and the Grand Dec­o­ra­tion of Hon­or in Gold for Ser­vices to the Repub­lic of Aus­tria in 2006. Markus Prachen­sky dies on July 16, 2011 in Vienna.
2011 – first exhi­bi­tion in the gallery Welz.