Scholly Commemorative Plaque

The commemorative plaque for the artist Nora Scholly is made of Untersberg marble and was designed by master stonemason Günter Brucker. A special feature is the depiction of the Virgin of Mercy, which was a favorite motif of Scholly. The plaque was donated by the Cultural Heritage Society of Bad Ischl (Ischler Heimatverein) and unveiled on 29 April 2022.

Eleonora Josefa Marta Scholly (11 April 1905, Bratislava – 21 October 1965, Bad Ischl) was an academic painter.

Scholly was the daughter of an old Viennese officer's family. Together with her parents Major Hans and her mother Emmy Scholly, and her sister Edith (born in 1910, Leitmeritz) she came to Bad Ischl in 1920.

After completing her compulsory schooling, the artistically gifted girl attended the Women's Academy in Vienna (Frauenakademie) and the Institution for Graphic Education and Research (Graphische Versuchsanstalt). In her long-term apartment, the Kaiservilla’s guest house of the, she worked as a freelance artist.

In the ‘50s, she founded the Scholly publishing house and opened a book and art shop at Kreuzplatz square. When the massive stone border of the parish church was converted into shops, Scholly’s shop was relocated to Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Strasse street.

The number of her works is large:

- portraits in delicate pastel shades, mainly of children and adolescents

- watercolors of the native landscape

- art papers

- engravings of trees, flowers and fairy-tale creatures

In her works, the focus was on the child and his/her games, wishes, and small and yet so wide world of imagination in which he/she lives and step-by-step explores.

Sixteen small picture books, with the story and the design by Nora Scholly, were finally owned by many little readers and also enchanted adults.

Her biggest success was the booklet Heartbeat of Small Things (Herzschlag kleiner Dinge), of which 30,000 copies were sold. The artist donated the net proceeds of the booklet to the construction of the Pfandler parish church (1958). The proceeds were used to purchase all the bricks for the construction of the church.

Scholly is also the author of the legend How the Christ Child came to the Cathedral Vicarage (Wie das Christkind in den Dompfarrhof kam) published by the Linz Cathedral Parish Office.

Other works by Scholly are:

- frescoes for the school of the Children's Village of St. Anton an der Glocknerstrasse

- frescoes for the secondary school in Bramberg

- large angel as wall decoration in the Stephaneum school in Bad Goisern

- altarpieces in St. Thomas near Waizenkirchen, Untergeng in the Mühlviertel region, Losenstein in the Ennstal valley

- painting in the so-called “Pfarrscheid” chapel in the village of Rußbach, municipality of St. Wolfgang

- picture of the Virgin Mary in the house chapel of the bishop's court in Linz

In her art compositions, Scholly focused on the kindness of Virgin Mary, which appears again and again in a wide variety of variations.  

Nora Scholly died of a stroke on 21 October 1965 on the way to her shop.