Bruno Gironcoli was born in Villach in 1936. He completed an apprenticeship in goldsmithing from 1951 to 1956 in Innsbruck. The then studied at the University of Applied Arts Vienna from 1957 to 1961. After returning from a one year stay in Paris, he lived and worked in Vienna where he became Professor and Head of the Master School for Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna as successor to Fritz Wotruba in 1977 and he stayed in this post until 2004. Today Bruno Gironcoli is one of Austria’s most significant contemporary artists of the time and has received numerous awards including the Austrian Art Prize (1979) and Grand Austrian State Prize (1993). His works have been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions including at the Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna (1968), the Museum of the 20th Century, Vienna (1970, 1977), the Biennale São Paulo (1971), the Biennale di Venezia (2003), the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna (1997), the MAMCO, Geneva (2012) and the Belvedere, Vienna (2013). He died in Vienna in 2010.