August Prinzhofer | |
|---|---|
 August Prinzhofer - detail from a memorial sheet by Würbel | |
| Born | 12 September 1816 |
| Died | 4 August 1885 (aged 68) Bad Steinerhof bei Kapfenberg, Austria-Hungary |
| Occupation(s) | Austrian painter and lithographer |
August Prinzhofer (12 September 1816 in St. Veit an der Glan – 4 August 1885 in Bad Steinerhof bei Kapfenberg) was an Austrian painter and lithographer.
August Prinzhofer came from a long-established Carinthian family and showed great talent for drawing even as a child. He studied law in Vienna and Padua. He worked in a civil court in Vienna from 1844 onwards as well as a simultaneous and successful career as a portraitist, until in 1854 he gave up the law to devote himself entirely to portraiture.
Prinzhofer was one of the artists who led to the flowering of photolithography in Vienna from 1830 to 1860 - others included Joseph Kriehuber, Franz Eybl and Eduard Kaiser. His lithographs included more than 500 portraits (of subjects including Hector Berlioz, Ludwig von Benedek, Ignaz Franz Castelli, Archduke John of Austria, Lajos Kossuth, Albert Lortzing, Alois Negrelli, pope Pius IX, Johann Ladislaus Pyrker and Johann Nestroy). In the 1850s photography was becoming ever more widespread and in 1860 the photolithograph fell out of fashion, so in 1861 Prinzhofer moved to Graz and increasingly dedicated himself solely to oil-on-canvas portraits and watercolour miniatures.
