Alfred Zoff

Biography

Alfred Zoff, born in Graz in 1852 as a doctor's son, initially studied jurisprudence and medicine. From 1880 to 1884, he attended the Vienna Academy in the painting class of Eduard Peithner von Lichtenfels; he then studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe under the well-known landscape painter Gustav Schönleber, who familiarized the young artist with the works of the Barbizon School. Numerous trips - some of them with Schönleber - took Zoff to Italy, but also to Holland and Brittany. In 1907, he was appointed professor at the Landeskunstschule in Graz, having previously lived successively in Munich, Krems an der Donau and Vienna. By the time Emperor Franz Josef had purchased several large naval landscapes, the artist was known to a wide audience and his paintings were represented at numerous exhibitions, including international ones, with great success. He received numerous national and international awards, including the Silver State Medal at the International Jubilee Exhibition in Vienna (1888), the “Medaille de bronce” at the World Exhibition in Paris (1900) and the Grand Gold State Medal (1907). Alfred Zoff, who was also a member of the Vienna Künstlerhaus (from 1883) and the Hagenbund (from 1900), created an impressive oeuvre with his marine and landscape depictions of Austria, the high quality of which makes the artist one of the most important representatives of Austrian Impressionism.
In the last two decades before 1900, Alfred Zoff's work was characterized by his exploration of the Mediterranean landscape. Like his mentor Gustav Schönleber, he primarily found his motifs on the coast and in the hinterland of the Ligurian Riviera, which he translated into vivid, spontaneous nature studies and impressive salon paintings. Shady, cypress-lined river valleys, romantic pine and olive tree-covered hills in the glistening sunlight, centuries-old, colorful towns and fishing villages on the coast and, above all, the sea in all its facets form the themes of this fascinating block of works by the artist, in which some of the best and highest quality works of Austrian Impressionism can be found.