People / Helmuth Gsöllpointner

Lecturer/s

Helmuth Gsöllpointner

Helmuth Gsöllpointner

Helmuth Gsöllpointner (born in 1933) attended the Steyr School for Steel Engraving and  Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Vienna. In 1955 he founded the School for Metal Sculpture as part of the VÖEST training workshop in Linz, whose head he remained until 1985. From 1963 Gsöllpointner was also in charge of Metal Sculpture and Industrial Design at the Kunstschule of the City of Linz, the precursor of today’s University of the Arts and Industrial Design; in 1973 he became head of the Master Class Metal. From 1977 to 1981 he also served as dean of the College and from 1971 to 1976 he was head of the artists’ association MAERZ. He became well-known also to a non-specialist public as the brain behind such exhibitions as “Forum Metall” (1977) and “Forum Design” (1980). The many prizes he was awarded included the Kulturmedaille of the City of Linz Linz (1992) and of Upper Austria (2005), the Theodor-Körner-Preis (1968) and the Kunstwürdigungspreis für Design of the City of Linz (2000). He refused to accept the Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold for Services to the Republic of Austria to register his protest against the then government (2000). Gsöllpointner has been made an honorary member of Design Austria and an honorary senator of Johannes Kepler Universität Linz.