Leopold Blauensteiner (16 January 1880 – 19 February 1947) was an Austrian academic painter. Biography Blauensteiner was the son of Leopold Blauensteiner and Johanna Toscano del Banner. His father died shortly after his birth, and his mother died in 1887, leaving him an orphan. He attended the grammar school in Melk. As a schoolboy he worked on the restoration of the parish church of Melk. After leaving school, he spent a year as a volunteer in the army. He then began to study painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under Professor Christian Griepenkerl and also studied a few terms of art history. In addition he took private lessons from Alfred Roller, who ran the magazine of the newly formed Vienna Secession, Ver Sacrum, which in 1903 and 1904 printed some coloured woodcuts by Blauensteiner. This was the first public appearance of his work. In 1904 he married Friderika Berger, who bore him three sons. In 1908, he took an active part in the worked actively in the Kunstschau Wien 1908. In 1909 he became a committee member of the "Klimt-Gruppe", and in 1911 of the Bund Hagen. In the First World War he joined the Uhlans (Lancers), leaving in 1916 with the rank of First Lieutenant. In 1924 he was a member of the artists' group "Die Hand", which exhibited in the Zedlitzhalle. He bought a house in Melk, where from 1925 he worked as conservator for the Monuments Office for the District of Melk and painted in his studio. From 1920 he was a member of the Vienna Künstlerhaus. In 1927 he was awarded the Austrian State Prize. In 1929 for his painting Funeralien ("Funeral Rites at Melk Abbey") he won a scholarship for a year's study in Italy, where he stayed until 1930. In 1932 he was awarded received the State Prize medal and the title of Professor. In 1933 he joined the National Socialist Party, but left again after it was banned in Austria, and in 1934 joined the Popular Front. In 1937 he became president of the Association of Vienna Artists (Genossenschaft bildender Künstler Wiens) and also of the Permanent Delegation of Austrian Artists (Ständige Delegation bildender Künstler Österreichs). In 1938 he was elected president of the Vienna Künstlerhaus, which he headed until 1941. In 1939, he reactivated his membership in the Nazi Party and was appointed National Director of the Reich Chamber