Wach decided to become an artist early on in his life, and arrived in
Vienna at the young age of 17, but initially suffered a series of setbacks. He was rejected as a student by the academy in
Munich and attempted unsuccessfully to study art in
Vienna. He received formal education at the
Knirr-Sailer painting school in Munich as well as, in 1913, the
Académie Colarossi in
Paris. He finished his studies with
Heinrich Altherr in
Stuttgart. In 1915 and 1916, Wach created a series of woodcuts showing the horror of war. Postcard-size woodcuts such as
Ein Totentanz von 1914 ('A Dead Dance of 1914') and
Straße der Schicksale ('Road of Destiny') depict an industrialized war of detonating bullets and dying soldiers. Wach served in
World War I in non-combative assignments. In 1916/7, he published seven woodcuts to accompany a poem called
Kriegstotentanz 1914, by an otherwise unknown poet named F.R. Zenz. Wach,
Georg Schrimpf and
Fritz Schaefler were members of the short-lived but important Aktionsauschuss Revolutionärer Künstler (Action Committee of Revolutionary Artists) which formed in 1919. Wach's woodcuts appeared in connection with radical causes and drew widespread attention in the daily press, at risk to himself. From 1919 to 1920, he created the wood carving cycle "Der verlorene Sohn". From 1920 he created expressionist still lifes, landscape paintings and portraits in Braunau, but later distanced himself from paintings of this period. A set of 16 wartime etchings,
"Ein Totentanz" von 1914 was published in portfolio form in 1922. Following the
Anschluss in 1938, Wach was banned from painting by the
Nazi regime. He died on 18 April 1940 of
tuberculosis and
malnutrition. His works were willed to Ernest Tross, who received them in Denver, Colorado in 1945. In 1956, a retrospective exhibition was held at the
Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art, with works lent to the museum by Tross, who also wrote the catalog. ==Selected paintings==