Full Name: Koschatzky, Walter
Gender: male
Date Born: 1921
Date Died: 2003
Place Born: Graz, Steiermark, Austria
Place Died: Vienna, Vienna state, Austria
Home Country/ies: Austria
Overview
Director of the Albertina, 1962-1986. Koschatzky attended the state gymnasium in Lichtenfelsgasse, Graz, graduating in 1933 and the military academy in Liebenau (1936-40). Between 1940-45 he served in the Austrian army. After the war he returned to Graz and enrolled in Karl-Franzens University, studying art history, archaeology, and history which he financed in part by performances as a jazz musician. In 1948 he married Trude (Caroline) Bauer (d. 1994) in Graz. He received his Ph.D. in 1952, joining the Steirien Landesdienst in 1953 and serving there until 1955 when he moved to state museum, Landesmuseum Joanneum, now the Neue Galerie. He was appointed director of that museum in 1956. In 1961 moved to the Albertina in Vienna as the announced successor to Otto Benesch. He assumed responsibilities as the director of the Albertina in 1962. Koschatzky set about an ambitious exhibition program for the Albertina to raise its reputation worldwide as the premier prints and drawings museum. He was a lecturer at the University of Vienna 1973-87 and visiting professor at Salzburg 1986/87. He received numerous honors and honorary degrees. After his first wife’s death he married (Dr) Gabriela Elias.
Selected Bibliography
[Koschatzky issued many exhibition catalogs in the auspices of the Albertina. Only a few are mentioned here.] Faszination Kunst: Erinnerungen eines Kunsthistorikers. Vienna: Böhlau, 2001; Eine Künstlerin im Wandel der Gegenwart: zu den neuen Werken von Heide Osterider-Stibor. Graz: Schnider Verlag, 2001; and Aberbach, Joachim Jean. The Albertina Exhibition of Hundertwassser’s Complete Graphic Work, 1951-1976. Glarus: Gruener Janura AG., 1973; and Strobl, Alice. Die Albertina in Wien. Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, 1970; and Strobel, Alice. Dürer Drawings in the Albertina. Greenwich, CN: New York Graphic Society 1972.
Sources
Koschatzky, Walter. Faszination Kunst: Erinnerungen eines Kunsthistorikers. Vienna: Böhlau, 2001, pp. 320-23 [CD recording of reminiscences]; [obituary:] The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec) May 10, 2003 p. C10.