Academy of fine arts vienna

Founded in 1692 in Austria by Peter Strudl (1660-1714), painter, sculptor, and court-painter, the Academy was private and had him as its first Director until his death. Then the school closed for eleven years but reopened to become a highly prestigious institution that embraced all existing Austrian art schools. In 1877, a new building at Schillerplatz opened, and the Academy remains at that location. During the Nazi era the Academy was forced to dismiss Jewish faculty members, but after the war it was rebuilt and today has university status. In 1907 and 1908, a young man and aspiring artist named Adolf Hitler was twice denied admission. It is speculated that this denial set this watercolorist on a divergent path that affected millions of other persons---far beyond the Vienna Academy. Graduates include Egon Schiele, Oskar Laske, Joanna Gleich, and Otto Wagner. Source: Wikipedia; AskART biographies