Walther Gabler was born in Ried in 1915 and was the son of the painter Heinrich Gabler. He studied under Wilhelm Dachauer at the Vienna Academy. He taught at the high school in Ried and was introduced to the Innviertel Artists’ Guild by Bauböck, joining it in 1935. After the Second World War he became Chairman of the Guild in 1946 and remained in this post for 38 years – until 1984. In line with the motto, “tradition is our strength”, he took a traditional approach to the Guild’s management. Gabler is primarily known as a portrait artist, as evidenced by his impressive portraits of dialect poet Hans Schatzdorfer, Museum Association curator Max Bauböck, composer Karl Rausch and Karl Hosaeus, the coordinator of the Innviertel Artists’ Guild. Walther Gabler died in 1993.