829. Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), Austrian,

Portrait of Herwarth Walden, 1910.

Oil on canvas, 100 x 69.3 cm.

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart. Expressionism.

 

 

Oskar Kokoschka

(1886 Pöchlarn – 1980 Montreux)

 

Oskar Kokoschka painted some of the major works of Expressionism and set a new standard for modern portraiture. Towards the end of his long life, his work was described as “eternal Expressionism”. Yet there has long been a strong tendency among critics and curators to regard his earliest work, particularly from the “Vienna years” of 1909-1914, as his best. Certainly Kokoschka created some of his most stunningly original visual and literary work during this period. However, he continued to explore the means for powerful expression in painting throughout his life.

Kokoschka was also a significant writer and active in cultural politics – as an outspoken opponent of the Nazi oppression – in his later career.

Kokoschka was born in Lower Austria and emerged from a milieu still under the influence of Klimt and Viennese Secessionism. He made his name while still a student at the 1908 Kunstschau in Vienna with works he produced under the aegis of the stylish Wiener Werkstätte. The already radical and unsettling qualities of his work were recognised early. He was dubbed Oberwildling or “Chief Savage”. Kokoschka did not train as a painter. He studied other techniques at the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Arts). Yet he had barely graduated when he began his intensive engagement with the portrait genre. Adolf Loos recognised the young artist’s raw, precocious talent and encouraged him, particularly in his portraiture. It is therefore fitting that one of Kokoschka’s first great portraits was of his mentor, painted in 1909.