German painter, engraver, architect and graphic artist working in Regensburg, of which town he was a citizen from 1505 onwards, the leading artist of the so-called Danube School of German painting.
His most outstanding works are biblical and historical subjects set against highly imaginative and atmospheric landscape backgrounds.
He was associated with the Bavarian city of Regensburg for almost all of his life.
He is first documented there in 1505 when he acquired citizenship rights and was called a "painter from Amberg", a small town north of Regensburg.
Since one could become a citizen in Regensburg at age sixteen, it is possible for Altdorfer to have been born as late as 1488, although an earlier date, circa 1480, seems more likely.
Altdorfer became a citizen of Regensburg in 1505 and bought a house there in 1513, another in 1518 and a third in 1532; he also owned several vineyards.
From 1517 he held seats on the outer and inner councils of Regensburg and represented the city on important official business.
Throughout his life Altdorfer was involved in the municipal government of Regensburg.
In 1517 he was a member of the "Ausseren Rates", the council on external affairs, and in this capacity was involved in the expulsion of the Jews, the destruction of the synagogue and in its place the construction of a church and shrine to the Schцne Maria that occurred in 1519.
Altdorfer made etchings of the interior of the synagogue and designed a woodcut of the cult image of the Schone Maria.
His graphic style was influenced by Albrecht Durer.
It has been suggested that his father was the painter and miniaturist, Ulrich Altdorfer, last mentioned in Regensburg in 1491.
Albrecht Altdorfer's signed and dated engravings and drawings first appeared in 1506 and were followed, in 1507, by several small paintings.
Woodcut production began in 1511.
The corpus of Altdorfer's surviving work comprises c. 55 panels, 120 drawings, 125 woodcuts, 78 engravings, 36 etchings, 24 paintings on parchment and fragments from a mural for the bathhouse of the Kaiserhof in Regensburg.
This production extends at least over the period 1504-37.
Most of the early works are dated: engravings 1506-11, woodcuts 1511-13; and although after 1513 Altdorfer ceased dating his prints, most, it would seem, and most of the surviving drawings, were executed by 1522.
