Gottfried Hofer

The painter Gottfried Hofer was born in Bolzano in 1858 in the present-day Museum Street, the son of a pastry cook. He lived in Bolzano, Munich, Paris, and in later life in Hambuirg, Rome and Berlin where he died in 1932.

Eclectic and itinerant, travelling between European cities, royal courts, as well as in the mountains of the Brenta Dolomites and staying in his own remote Hofer Refuge, he gathered a wealth of influences and ideas which are reflected in his works.

Among other things they document the changes which he saw during his lifetime and the development of tourism from its beginnings when it was restricted to the wealthy few, to its becoming a mass market phenomenon.

The neo-baroque building of the Town Hall of Bolzano is embellished with frescoes by the painter Gottfried Hofer.