While study­ing at the Munich Acad­e­my, Thöny was one of the first mem­bers of the Munich New Seces­sion. After the First World War, in which he worked as a drafts­man, he returned to his native Graz and became a co-founder and first pres­i­dent of the Graz Seces­sion (1923). Dur­ing this time, city vedu­tas and genre scenes were cre­at­ed. In 1931 Thöny emi­grat­ed to Paris via Milan and reg­u­lar­ly spent a few months on the Côte d´Azur. In 1938 he emi­grat­ed to New York with his wife. Despite numer­ous exhi­bi­tions, Thöny suf­fered from the iso­la­tion of the emi­grant. On March 4, 1948, a fire in a ware­house in New York destroyed many of his graph­ics and paint­ings, which were to be shown in a large col­lec­tive exhi­bi­tion. He was not to recov­er from this stroke of fate until his death on May 1, 1949.
Wil­helm Thöny was an artist who clear­ly shows the shift in focus in Aus­tri­an art after the First World War. As a per­son and as an artist, Thöny was a lon­er who did not feel oblig­ed to any art direc­tion, which is expressed in the diverse tech­niques and con­tent of his works. .

The exhi­bi­tion shows ink and pen­cil draw­ings, water­col­ors and oil paint­ings from the 1930s to 1949.