The artist, born in Eisen­stadt in 1940, is con­sid­ered to be the main rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the art brut move­ment in Aus­tria, from whose art move­ment he ties in and whose forms he uses. When study­ing his work, thoughts of Dubuf­fet, the paint­ing of small chil­dren and pic­to­r­i­al forms of psy­cho­log­i­cal com­pul­sions get in the way of the viewer. 

Peter Pon­gratz on paint­ing: “Right from the very begin­ning of my occu­pa­tion with paint­ing, I assumed that some­thing that claims to be called art, or more pre­cise­ly to the name of con­tem­po­rary art, must def­i­nite­ly con­tain an inde­pen­dent form of expres­sion. For the painter in par­tic­u­lar, this means that if pos­si­ble out­side of cul­tur­al tem­plates, he should be able to use col­ors and shapes to visu­al­ize his own, authen­tic world and self-image, free from out­side influences. ” 

Pon­gratz stud­ied at the Acad­e­my of Fine Arts in Vien­na and at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Fine Arts in Berlin. With Wolf­gang Herzig, Martha Jung­wirth, Kurt Kocher­schei­dt, Franz Ringel and Robert Zep­pel-Sperl, he found­ed the artist group Real­i­ties. Study trips took him to Paris, Venice, Aus­tralia, the South Seas and Kor­cu­la. Peter Pon­gratz lives and works in Vien­na and on Korčula.

Since 1988 Peter Pon­gratz has been rep­re­sent­ed with exhi­bi­tions in the gallery. Works from recent years and cur­rent works are pre­sent­ed in the exhibition.