Wilhelm Bernatzik

Wilhelm Bernatzik (18 May 1853, Mistelbach – 25 or 26 November 1906, Hinterbrühl) was an Austrian painter.

Bernatik was the brother of the constitutional law teacher Edmund Bernatzik. Initially a law student at his father's request, he studied at the Special School for Landscape Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna under Eduard Peithner von Lichtenfels from 1873 to 1875. In 1875, he received the Golden Füger-Medal and studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf until 1878. Finally, he finished his training in Paris with Léon Bonnat. In 1880 he joined the Vienna Künstlerhaus. He painted The Vision of St Bernhard in 1882 in Heiligenkreuz Abbey, having been attracted by the mood of the Gothic place. At the 1894 World Exhibition in Antwerp, he won a medal (second class). In 1897 he was a founding member of the Vienna Secession, and served as the group's president in 1902-03. With the art critic Julius Meier-Graefe he organised a successful Impressionist exhibition in Vienna in 1903. Together with the group around Gustav Klimt, he left the Secession in 1905.

He died in Hinterbrühl in his brother Marx's house. He was buried in Hinterbrühl cemetery. In 1907, the Galerie Miethke in Vienna held a retrospective exhibition on his life.

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