Peter Pongratz (Eisenstadt(AT), 1940)

Peter Pongratz was born in Eisenstadt in 1040. After a variety of artistic training programmes, he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. There he attended Christian Ludwig Martin’s masterclass in graphic art and completed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin in 1964.

Over the years, he often worked as a stage designer and was involved in several performances. His first stage design was created in 1972 for ‘Lichtenberg’ by Gerhard Roth at the Theater am Turm in Frankfurt. This work was followed by many others and by 2004 he had created 50 stage and film sets.

Together with the artists Wolfgang Herzig, Martha Jungwirth, Kurt Kochserscheidt, Franz Ringel and Robert Zeppel-Sperl, Pongratz founded the artists' group “Wirklichkeiten”.

He has received several prizes, including the City of Vienna Prize of Honour and the Austrian State Prize for Fine Arts.

In addition to his career in painting, Pongratz is also a musician and has played with numerous jazz bands as a drummer over the years.

Copyright the artist. Photo UniCredit Group