(Oberndorf 1891–1958 Kitzbühel)
Wilder Kaiser with Farmhouse in the Winter, c. 1930, signed A. Walde, oil on cardboard, 41.5 x 67 cm, in original Walde frame

Registered:
Archive Alfons Walde

Provenance:
Family collection, Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic – acquired in Kitzbühel

...It matters whether an artist only knows the winter season from glancing now and again at frozen winter landscape wearing thick furs and thus paints “winter pictures”, or whether the artist is devoted to the adventures of ice and snow and artistically records all those myriad experiences. Only the latter artist, who is completely captivated by these adventures, is able to bring the concept of “winter” to us in a spiritual way ...

Fritz Karpfen, Alfons Walde, Bergland, VI (1924), no. 11
From: Gert Ammann, Alfons Walde, 4th edition, Tyrolia-Verlag, 2004

...If people could look without prejudice, and not always wish to wait until one persuaded them to accept what they would, in any case, sooner or later be compelled to acknowledge, they would have the pleasant satisfaction of already recognising Walde as one of the most significant Austrian painters. Key pieces within his characterful oeuvre can be seen in the Secession, whose 94th exhibition takes place during this month and the next, displaying art typical of the Tirol region. Alfons Walde took on pleasant autonomy on his path to greatness. This is more than a personal issue, as it led to new expressions for form and colour. Goethe’s statement that there cannot truly be anything new in poetry (and that it only ever comes down to the fact that something has been reiterated, and the manner in which this reiteration takes place) also applies to visual arts. Even something astonishingly new always contains elements that are drawn from the past. To name a few of the key moments that encourage this evolution, it is only about continuing something which already exists, about assembling things in a different way, about introducing a new spirit. Naturally, there are exceptions here too, but experience teaches that the all too unknown approaches the constantly progressing. When one speaks of the new in Walde’s work, it is to be understood loosely. The essential elements of his work can also be found elsewhere. But his greatness lies in the fact that he uses the material of his choice in the way he does and not in any other way, that he builds up his pictures with a power that is peculiar to him alone, with a sense of content and form, of line and colour that is available only to him…

Max Roden, Tiroler Künstler. Volkszeitung, Vienna, 25 Juli 1927
From: Gert Ammann, Alfons Walde, 4th edition, Tyrolia-Verlag, 2004