His first works – like the picture book The Dreaming Youths – were admired, and in 1908 he exhibited in the Kunstschau exhibition organized by the Klimt circle. One of the longest-lived expressionist painters, the Austrian-born painter, printmaker and writer Oskar Kokoschka was born at Pochlarn in Bohemia, and received his arts training in the Austro-Hungarian capital, Vienna. He later moved to Prague to flee the Nazis after his work was condemned as “degenerate” and removed from public view. He is most celebrated for his dark, emotionally turbulent figurative paintings, like The Bride of the Wind (1914), a meditation on his affair with Alma Mahler. Like Max Beckmann, he is considered a founding leader of Expressionism, but both artists maintained some independence from the movement Kokoschka rejected the term as a description of his work and maintained that his practice adhered to traditional themes and values. Throughout his life, Kokoschka was concerned with expressing human character and psychology through effects of color, formal distortion, and violent brushwork. Kokoschka remarked of the striations in the clay, “Seeing a Polynesian mask with its incised tattooing, I understood at once, because I could feel my own facial nerves reacting to cold and hunger in the same way.”Īustrian Painter, Printmaker, Draftsman, Sculptor, Poet, and PlaywrightĪn artist, poet, and playwright, Oskar Kokoschka is known for his expressionistic portraits and landscapes. The thickly modeled clay, with incised lines, would find its counterpart in his portrait paintings from this same time.
#VIENNA SECESSION KOKOSHKA SKIN#
It is as if Kokoschka pulled back his own skin to reveal raw nerves and flesh. The artist subverts the traditional form of the portrait bust by presenting distorted, suffering features. Prominent members of this group who had their portraits painted include the art dealer Herwarth Walden, art supporter Lotte Franzos, poet Peter Altenberg, and art historians Hans and Erica Tietze.Ĭreated just a year after The Dreaming Boys, Kokoschka’s Self-portrait as Warrior declares his break with Jugendstijl and decorative arts and affirms his commitment to an expressionistic art. Other portraits by Kokoschka feature friends and advocates within his circle who supported the modern art of this period. A majority of Kokoschka’s subjects were clients of the architect Loos, and it was Loos who ordered the portraits and agreed to purchase them if the sitter chose not to. Unlike many of his contemporaries who were also receiving portrait commissions, such as Edvard Munch, Kokoschka maintained complete artistic freedom because they were generally not ordered directly by the sitter. Oskar Kokoschka painted a bulk of his portraiture between 19. Kokoschka studied there from 1904 to 1909, and was influenced by his teacher Carl Otto Czeschka in developing an original style. Unlike the more prestigious and traditional Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the Kunstgewerbeschule was dominated by instructors of the Vienna Secession.
The Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule was a progressive school of applied arts that focused mainly on architecture, furniture, crafts and modern design.
He received a scholarship and was one of few applicants to be accepted. Against his father’s will, Kokoschka applied to the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, now the University of Applied Arts Vienna. One of Kokoschka’s teachers suggested he pursue a career in the fine arts after being impressed by some of his drawings.
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