Austrian sculptor Alfons Riedel, son of a sculptor himself, studied under Josef Müllner from 1918-25 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wien (Vienna). He frequently received public orders from the city of Wien, but he could never live well from his art and was chronically short of money during his life. In 1927 he became Wilhelm Frass’ assistant, working mainly in Turkey. In 1935 he became a member of the Künstlerhaus. Although a member of the Social Democrats, which was actually illegal prior to the “Anschluss”, Riedel joined the Nazi Party in 1941, after some unsuccessful attempts to obtain public contracts. From 1942-45 he served at the Eastern Front with the German Wehrmacht, and until the end of 1945 was a Russian prisoner of war for half a year. During the 1950s as president of the Artists Association of Austrian Sculptors Riedel vehemently pleaded for an amendment to the Social Security Act for artists. He was appointed as a professor and was also president of the Künstlerhaus Vienna from 1961-65.
Austria