Pingo, ergo sum! (© Josef Jobst)

Biography:

Born 1949 in Rubring, Lower Austria (the Soviet-occupied Zone 1945-55). Primary- and secondary school in the small rural town of St.Valentin, where his teachers noticed his talents for doing art. He won the national art students painting prize from 1961 till 1963. He studied at the technical college and became an architect, using his drawing talents for designing of structures and buildings. But beside of his day-job he studied wood-engraving and etching by Prof.Balczarek, and stage-design by Jean C. Philipp. 1968 he attended the artistsgroup "IDEE" lead by famous author Fritz Woess.

Marriage, birth of first son, built a house ... the very standard career of common bourgeois. But he never forgot his call for the fine arts, and on his business trips he made about 300 sketches and drawings and 200 watercolors of landscapes, nature and ancient buildings.

Till the caesura 1993: first heart attack, surgery (four cardiac bypasses); during his stay at the recreational clinic he attended a therapy by painting and after the second session he decided to start his second career as an artist.
But again he was fated to change his aim of life in 1995 when thyroid cancer was found!
His health record : 1993 up to now (in extracts!):
    – 27 surgeries
    – 3 cardiac infarctions
    – 2 cancer
    – 1 stroke
    – 85 stays in hospitals
    – now his heart has a remaining power of 33 percent, he got a heart-pacemaker and a defibrillator implanted....
 
nevertheless he worked in his studio all those days when he was not in a hospital, and found his new maxim:
„Because I'm painting, I'm still alive.“