L'étang, Circa 1958

Ludwig Bürgel  

Ludwig Bürgel (born August 27, 1901 in Vienna; he died May 20, 1980 in Salzburg)

Ludwig Bürgel was an Austrian painter.

Ludwig Bürgel was born in Vienna as the son of a magistrate and the son of a doctor. After primary and municipal school, he began an apprenticeship in commerce thanks to his father, who left the family, and joined a transport company. His love of drawing, which he had acquired in childhood, never let go, and even his boss in the shipping company advised him to become a painter.

Ludwig Bürgel moved to the copper printing press in Vienna, where he learned the trade and began producing works of art on copper plates himself. In his free time he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna with Professor Maßmann. In 1922, he decided to create his own business and now lives as a freelance artist.

In 1926, he took his mother's maiden name and met his future wife Léopoldine Glock. The two were to be married in 1928. With etchings of Austrian landscapes, he quickly made a name for himself as a naturalist painter. Material success enabled the Bürgels to build a house near Baden near Vienna.

Meanwhile, the couple took their stepsister Hélène to live with them. A year later their own son Peter followed, and in 1940 their daughter Victoria.

During World War II, from autumn 1944, Bürgel was appointed mayor and local group leader of Heiligenkreuz for a short period until the end of March 1945. After the war, Bürgel fled the Russian occupiers of Vienna to the Innviertel and had to abandon his home. The first post-war exhibitions allow Ludwig Bürgel to quickly pick up where he left off before the war. In 1949 the family moved to Seekirchen am Wallersee, where after three years Bürgel bought land in Bahnhofstrasse and started building again. In 1959, the house and the workshop could be moved.

During his stay in Seekirchen, Bürgel was able to establish his reputation as one of the most important landscape painters of his time. Many exhibitions, especially in Salzburg and Linz, but also internationally, allow him to make a living from painting.

Until his death on May 20, 1980, Ludwig Bürgel produced a number of oil paintings which are still highly regarded by collectors today. His widow continued to sell in his workshop until 1997.

The Ludwig-Bürgel-Weg in Seekirchen is named after Bürgel.