Elmar Peintner

Peintner was born in 1954 in Zams, near Landeck in Tyrol, the second of seven children of Hubert Peintner, a teacher, and Laura Peintner, née Koeck, a tailoress.

From 1954 to 1972, he spent his childhood and youth in Landeck. In 1972, he sat his A-level examinations at Landeck Grammar School.

Between 1972 and 1974, he was a student at the Teacher Training Academy in Zams, qualifying as a primary school teacher. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts under Prof. Maximilian Melcher from 1974 to 1979. In 1979, he was awarded a diploma and a Master of Fine Arts.

He was granted a Foreign Scholarship to study in Luxembourg by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Arts. He was a guest student of Prof. Tetsuya Noda at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music (GEIDAI), Faculty of Fine Arts in Tokyo, Japan.

In 1982, Elmar Peintner moved to Imst, building himself a studio house. Peintner married Maria Foerg, a piano teacher in 1985.

Peintner's works are published in a number of catalogues and books and has been awarded many honors and prizes for his art.

• 1977 Golden Füger Award, Vienna, Austria
• 1979 Uitgeverij Danthe Award, Belgium
• 1979 Master Class Award, Vienna, Austria
• 1980 Polish National Museum Award at the 8th International Biennial of Graphic Art in Kraków, Poland
• 1981 1st Prize at the 11th International Biennial of Graphic Art in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium
• 1982 1st Prize in the City of Innsbruck Art Award, Innsbruck, Austria
• 1984 Young Talent Award at the International Biennial of Graphic Art "Intergraphik 84", Berlin, Germany
• 1984 1st Prize at the II. European Triennial of Graphic Art, Grado, Italy
• 1989 Creditanstalt Award at "Fingerprints ‘89", Vienna, Austria
• 1992 IWA Foundation Award at the Biennial of Graphic Art in Ostrava and Havířov, Czech Republic
• 1992/1993 Double award winner at the International Exhibition of Graphic Art in the Napa Art Center, Napa, California, United States
• 1995 Gold Medal Winner at the 2nd International Exhibition of Graphic Art in Stockholm, Sweden
• 2002 1st Prize at the IV. SACHA 2002, Chavantes, São Paulo, Brazil
• 2004 1st Prize at the 3rd Biennial "Lilla Europa 2004", Hallsberg and Örebro, Sweden
• 2005 Special Award at the 4th Lessedra World Art Print Exhibition 2005, Sofia, Bulgaria
• 2006 Decoration of Honour in Gold for Services to the Republic of Austria^[1]
• 2008 Price at the International Print Exhibition Yunnan 2008, Kunming, China
• 2009 Price of honour at the 1st International Graphik Biennial - China 2009, Fushun City, China
• 2009 Guanlan International Print Prize at the 2nd Guanlan International Print Biennial 2009, Shenzhen, China
• 2013 Decoration of Honour of the state Tyrol, Austria
• 2016 Decoration of Honour of the City of Landeck for Art and Culture

Elmar Peintner rose to popularity at the beginning of the 1980s. He was a contemporary artist best known for his “Menschenbilder” (senescent children pictures), usually executed with hard pencils and additional water-colour, the models being from the family circle, the neighbourhood, or local rest homes. In the forefront, as with all his work, is not the naturalistic reproduction of nature, but the attempt to penetrate to the physical and mental structure of man via realism of microstructures.

In the 90s work Peintner restricts himself to placing totally different objects next to or above, and thus in relation to, each other. The artist does not seek to create a "super – reality" by means of dream and subconscious, but in his pictures he presents poetic enigmas containing questions of reality. Far from any illusionism, neutrally suspended, what has been experienced and reflected, the real and the imaginary, meet in a tense relationship with each other, in the intention of contributing to the awareness and perception of reality.

Now Elmar Peintner presents (Museum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck, 2004) a new series of graphite drawings which deal purely and simply with what nature offers: records of fragments or conglomerates from the patterns in nature, fanned out facet-like and presented in their transparency: ramifications, hollows, dense plasticity, nerve structures. They are not scientific herbaceous exhibits, nor are they a catalogue of floral prints. On the contrary, the subject matter emanates a liveliness of substance with all the phases of growth and decay. Inner issues and energy are released. The various processes in the unyieldingness of the substance are noted. Peintner's position as a re-creator of this nature also comes out. He declares himself in his consistency and his stamping of the graphic production. He reduces his ideal world to the factual in the motif.

Peintner Elmar's art "Children's Feet and Ladders" was selected for 8th Beijing International Art Biennale China 2019.^[2]