Wil­helm THÖNY was born in Graz in 1888. He stud­ied at the Munich Acad­e­my from 1908 to 1912. Thöny enlist­ed as a vol­un­teer in the First World War in 1915. Dur­ing this time he pro­duced numer­ous por­trait stud­ies. He was a co-founder of the Munich Seces­sion (1913) and the Graz Seces­sion (1923). The artist worked as a painter, graph­ic artist and, from 1914, as an illus­tra­tor. Lat­er he cre­at­ed land­scapes and fig­ures. From 1931 to 1938, he spent time in Paris and on the Côte d’Azur. Thöny moved to New York in 1938. More than a thou­sand of his paint­ings and prints were destroyed in a fire in a ware­house in New York, and a large part of his life’s work was lost. He was nev­er able to recov­er from this stroke of fate. As a per­son and artist, Thöny was a mav­er­ick who did not feel com­mit­ted to any artis­tic move­ment. The artist died in New York in 1949. 1936 — first par­tic­i­pa­tion in an exhi­bi­tion, 1950 — first solo exhi­bi­tion at Galerie Welz.

Wil­helm THÖNY was born in Graz in 1888. He stud­ied at the Munich Acad­e­my from 1908 to 1912. Thöny enlist­ed as a vol­un­teer in the First World War in 1915. Dur­ing this time he pro­duced numer­ous por­trait stud­ies. He was a co-founder of the Munich Seces­sion (1913) and the Graz Seces­sion (1923). The artist worked as a painter, graph­ic artist and, from 1914, as an illus­tra­tor. Lat­er he cre­at­ed land­scapes and fig­ures. From 1931 to 1938, he spent time in Paris and on the Côte d’Azur. Thöny moved to New York in 1938. More than a thou­sand of his paint­ings and prints were destroyed in a fire in a ware­house in New York, and a large part of his life’s work was lost. He was nev­er able to recov­er from this stroke of fate. As a per­son and artist, Thöny was a mav­er­ick who did not feel com­mit­ted to any artis­tic move­ment. The artist died in New York in 1949. 1936 — first par­tic­i­pa­tion in an exhi­bi­tion, 1950 — first solo exhi­bi­tion at Galerie Welz.


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