History

The “Austrian Graphic Art Competition” in Krems

A Panorama of Austrian Art in the 1970s

With the Austrian Graphic Art Competition, held in Krems in 1970, 1973 and 1976, contemporary art made a significant entrance into the city. The very first competition already attracted considerable attention: more than 200 artists submitted around 800 works, sparking lively debate. Local media discussed the “sense and nonsense of abstraction,” while the exhibition of the award-winning works simultaneously became a major attraction for the public. Particularly striking was the strong interest shown by young visitors—over 1,200 school students engaged intensively, and often critically, with the exhibited works.

The chair of the jury, Harry Kühnel, identified both a reluctance to address current issues and a strong tendency toward abstraction in the submitted works. The competitions thus reflected key artistic questions of the 1970s, with thematic focuses on technology, nature, and humanity. Stylistically and technically, the submissions revealed great diversity, which was also mirrored in the evolving competition guidelines: while in 1970 works in all graphic techniques were permitted, the 1973 competition accepted only prints and watercolours. By 1976, submissions were limited exclusively to original graphic techniques such as woodcut, etching, screen printing, or lithography.

In total, eight prizes with a combined value of 63,000 Austrian schillings were awarded in 1970. The jury included, among others, Maximilian Melcher—professor of graphic art and rector of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna—and Walter Koschatzky, director of the Albertina. The awarded works became the property of the City of Krems. In 1973, 164 artists participated, and prize money of 60,000 schillings was distributed among ten awards. In 1976, the number of submissions declined to 100, with seven prizes awarded totaling 50,000 schillings. The first prizes were awarded to Peter Pongratz (1970), Erich Steininger (1973), and Linde Waber (1976), who became the first woman to receive the main prize. Like many participants, all three had studied under Maximilian Melcher.

Today, the graphic art competitions offer valuable insights into the Austrian art scene of the 1970s and form an important historical foundation for the present. This tradition has been continued since 2024 with the Erich Grabner Prize for Artistic Graphic Art of the City of Krems, which reinterprets the former competition in a contemporary context. The new open call in spring 2024 received 450 submissions from across Austria. Seventy positions selected by the jury were presented in the exhibition paper unlimited. at museumkrems from 21 September to 17 November 2024, offering a comprehensive overview of the diversity of contemporary graphic art in Austria.

The four prizes awarded by the City of Krems, the Province of Lower Austria, the Rotary Club Krems-Wachau, and Göttweig Abbey were presented at the closing ceremony on 14 November 2024 in the Dominican Church in Krems. The prize winners were Alexandra Kontriner, Ernst Lima, Leonhard Lorenz Knabl, and Oswald Auer. The Audience Award, sponsored by the Friends of Erich Grabner, was awarded to Marianne Lang. The Erich Grabner Prize is held biennially, with the next open call beginning on 19 January 2026.