Josef Gassler (1893-1978)

Josef Gassler was born in 1893 in Austerlitz in Moravia (today Czech Republic). He studied in Breslau and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the class of Rudolf Bacher, Hans Tichy and Alois Delug. His early success at the Academy was abruptly interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. Under the impression of the war Gassler dedicated his works more intensive melancholic subjects. From 1925 until 1927 he lived in Paris and travelled to Italy, South of France, Prague, Vienna and Carlsbad. From 1927 he lived in Carlsbad and designed porcelain and glass for Moser and other Czechoslovak manufactures and worked on murals and theatrical scenery. From 1928 until 1939 he was a member of the Wiener Secession (Viennese Secession) and then also a member of the Künstlerhaus. After the Second World War Gassler moved to Vienna, where he stayed for the rest of his life.

His preferred subjects were still lifes, portraits and landscapes. He did a lot of frescoes in Bohemia and Moravia and did sceneries for the theater in Carlsbad.

Josef Gassler died in 1978 in Vienna.