Sculpture by Bruno Gironcoli at Art Cologne 2023

Bruno Gironcoli: o.T., sculpture on display at the booth of the gallery W&K, Wienerroither & Kohlbacher at Art Cologne 2023. Bruno Gironcoli (1936-2010) was an Austrian painter and sculptor who is especially known for his fantastic and surreal sculptures.

Bruno Gironcoli (1936-2010) was an Austrian painter and sculptor. Bruno Gironcoli completed an apprenticeship as a goldsmith in Innsbruck. From 1957 to 1959 and from 1961 to 1962, he studied at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna. He then went to Paris, where he was artistically influenced by the works of Alberto Giacometti. Gironcoli worked with the materials wood, nylon, iron, aluminum, glass, polyester and wire. In 1967, he had his first solo exhibition at the Heide Hildebrand Gallery in Klagenfurt, followed by a solo exhibition at the Galerie nächst St. Stephan in 1968.

In 1977, Gironcoli was appointed head of the sculpture school at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, where he worked as Fritz Wotruba's successor until 2004. He received the Grand Austrian State Prize for Fine Arts in 1993 and was Austria's official representative at the Biennale di Venezia 2003.

Although he never visited Africa himself, Gironcoli collected African masks and fetishes, amassing over 400 examples over the course of time. The masks were exhibited in the Gironcoli Museum in Herberstein.

The late work consists of monumental sculptures, mostly made of wood, iron and sheet metal, rarely of aluminum, which implement fantastic and surreal motifs.

Bruno Gironcoli: o.T., sculpture on display at the booth of the gallery W&K, Wienerroither & Kohlbacher at Art Cologne 2023. Cologne (Germany), November 16, 2023.