Walter Pichler was born in Vienna, Austria, but spent most of his early years in Salzburg. There he studied glass painting and engraving. After completing his studies, he went back to Vienna where he worked making stained glass windows and restoring old windows. Beginning in 1963 and ending in 1968, he studied graphic design at the Academy for commercial art in Vienna. It was around this time he began to do book illustrations. He met a South African girl named Pat who he married after finishing his degree in 1968. They then moved to South Africa.
For 10 years he spent his time working for a variety of ad agencies and design studios in Johannesburg. He freelanced for such newspapers as The Star, Pretoria News, and The Sunday Times and magazines such as Financial Mail and Style. He did cartoons and illustrations. He decided he was done with the ad industry and went fully freelance in 1978. This proved to be a wise move because aside from the work he was already doing, he did cartoon strips for a number of house magazines, newsletters, and ad agencies.
He spent from 1985 to 1998 doing daily cartoons for Business Day’s front page and six years doing the cover of the SA Builder. It wasn’t until 1994 that he moved to Cape Town where he has been working for all of the major publishers doing illustrations and cartoons. He eventually had two of his own cartoon books published. He did one with his wife Pat who is a preschool teacher that is geared toward preschool children. The other book’s theme is based on sports. His specialty is large busy pictures of whatever subject and also framed caricatures for corporations and private clients. He uses mostly pen and ink with water colors.