Wilhelm Nicolaus Prachensky “Winter in the mountains” 1920

Wilhelm Nicolaus Prachensky was an Austrian painter, graphic artist, and architect. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under Angelo Jank. The versatile artist spent most of his life in Innsbruck, painting landscapes as well as portraits. He is an outstanding representative of Classical Modernism in Tyrol. Together with others he founded the artists association “Die Waage” and was represented in touring exhibitions in Europe. Wilhelm Nicolaus was the father of the renowned Austrian painter Markus Prachensky.
After an early expressive phase, Wilhelm N. Prachensky developed his incomparable signature in the style of the Neue Sachlichkeit around 1920. Idealized and powerful, he captured his homeland, the Tyrolean mountains. Among his most impressive paintings are snow pictures. With broad brushstrokes, he structures mountains, valleys and forests and captures them in their massiveness and force. Man-made things like homesteads seem lonely and lost in it. The color palette reflects the mood of the season.