Tony Kirchmayr (1887 - 1965)

Tony Kirchmayr

Toni Kirchmayr was an Austrian painter and restorer. He received his first artistic training from the native painter and poet Alfons Siber. He then took lessons in ornamental and fresco painting from the fresco painter Rafael Thaler in Innsbruck until 1903 and completed a further year at the private painting school Moritz Weinhold in Munich. On 1905 he started studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He was headmaster of the Heymann painting school, did decorative and decorative arts painting for publishers and worked as an assistant to church painters and restorers in the summer, which gave him knowledge of fresco painting. He had to interrupt his studies in 1908/1909 for military service. After completing his studies in 1910, he settled in Innsbruck as a freelance artist. Shortly after the end of the First World War, in January 1919, he founded the Toni Kirchmayr School of Painting and Drawing in Innsbruck, which existed until his death and became the most important artistic training centre in Tyrol. Toni Kirchmayr created a versatile oeuvre ranging from landscapes, interiors and still lifes in oil to ornamentation and decorative art and large-format wall and ceiling frescoes. The landscape painting shows modern, colour-expressive features. Kirchmayr showed a special talent as a portraitist.