Max Weiler

In 1925 Max Weiler joined the youth movement "Bund Neuland", whose enthusiasm for nature combined with spiritual ideals of renewal became a fundamental experience for him. In 1930 he was accepted into the painting school of Prof. Karl Sterrer at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, but returned to Tyrol as a drawing teacher when the war broke out. In 1945 Max Weiler received his first major public commission with the decoration of the Theresienkirche on the Hungerburg above Innsbruck, which, however, led to a scandal due to the interpretation of the pictures. Other important public commissions include the apse of the Friedenskirche in Linz-Urfahr (1951), the counter hall of Innsbruck Central Station (1954/55) and the murals in the Casino Innsbruck (1992/93). In 1960 Weiler was elected representative of Austria at the Venice Biennale, and from 1964 to 1981 he was appointed professor of painting at the Academy in Vienna. In his later years he undertook extensive travels and numerous major exhibitions took place both nationally and internationally, at the Chinese National Gallery in Beijing in 1998, at the Künstlerhaus and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Max Weiler's work has already received prizes and honours during his lifetime, including the Austrian Medal of Honor for Science and Art (1979) and the Great Golden Medal of Honor with Star of the Republic of Austria (2000). He is an honorary member of the Vienna Academy and an honorary citizen of the City of Vienna and is buried after his death on 29 January 2001 in an honorary grave at the Vienna Central Cemetery. The first phase of his artistic work until the end of the war is still marked by simplified figure painting, then the artist formulates in an expressive style until, from the 1950s onwards, he develops his own abstract and gestural cipher language for nature and the great order of the cosmos. This examination is reflected in five large cycles, which simultaneously determine the essential sections of the work up to 1980. Max Weiler's late work is characterized by intense colors and a dynamic brushstroke, in which the spiritual power of nature is once again convincingly symbolized.