- Born:
- March 1, 1886, Pöchlarn, Austria
- Died:
- February 22, 1980, Montreux, Switzerland (aged 93)
- Movement / Style:
- Expressionism
Oskar Kokoschka
-
Who was Oskar Kokoschka?
Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980) was an Austrian painter and writer and a leading figure in Expressionism. Early in life, tragedy struck when his family was forced to relocate to Vienna due to his father's bankruptcy, and his eldest brother died in 1891.
Kokoschka's early portraits used gesture to intensify the psychological penetration of character, and his later works often featured allegories of emphatic humanism. His literary works, including dramas, poems, and prose, are known for psychological insight and stylistic daring. In 1937, the Nazis condemned his works as degenerate art. Kokoschka fled to London in 1938 and became a British subject in 1947.
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What kind of art is Oskar Kokoschka known for?
Oskar Kokoschka, an Austrian painter and writer, was a leading figure in Expressionism. His early portraits used gesture to intensify the psychological understanding of the subject. Later in his career, Kokoschka created powerful allegories that showed his strong humanism. Besides painting, his dramas, poems, and prose are known for their psychological insight and stylistic boldness.
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What was Kokoschka’s painting style called?
Oskar Kokoschka, a leading figure in Expressionism, employed a style characterized by subjective emotions and responses rather than objective reality. His early portraits used gesture to intensify the psychological penetration of character.
Kokoschka's landscapes featured vibrant, fluid lines and expressive colors to convey the emotional aspects of a scene, differing from the Impressionist school that sought to represent only what strikes the eye. His portraits showed a sensitive preoccupation with the character of his subjects, expressing this character through color, exaggerating certain features and gestures to express their psychological states.
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How did Kokoschka’s life in Austria influence his work?
Oskar Kokoschka's early life in Austria significantly shaped his Expressionist art and writing. His family's financial struggles led to a move to Vienna, where he received artistic inspiration from the local churches. Despite his dissatisfaction with the decorative arts focus at the School of Arts and Crafts, Kokoschka's primary interest remained the human figure, fueled by his deep concern for humanity.
Kokoschka's early portraits demonstrated a sensitive exploration of his subjects' characters, utilizing vibrant colors to convey their psychological states. His play, Murderer, Hope of Women (1907), reflected his sensitivity to modern moral crises and condemned the political injustices in European society, displaying his compassion for humanist philosophy.
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What are some famous paintings or writings by Kokoschka?
Oskar Kokoschka, an Austrian Expressionist painter and writer, is known for his psychologically intense portraits and allegories. His early portraits feature expressive gestures that intensify the character of his subjects.
Kokoschka's notable paintings include Dents du Midi (1909), The Red Egg (1940–41), and View of Hamburg Harbour (1951). His literary works include the play Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (Murderer, Hope of Women, 1907), which reflects his sensitivity to modern moral crises and condemns political injustices. His autobiography, My Life (1964), provides insights into his life and work.
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How did Kokoschka contribute to modern art and literature?
Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was a leading Austrian Expressionist painter and writer. His early portraits used gesture to intensify psychological character exploration, and his later works featured allegories of emphatic humanism.
Kokoschka's plays, such as Murderer, Hope of Women (1907), heralded the new Expressionist theatre, expressing his humanist philosophy and sensitivity to modern moral crises while condemning European political injustices. His dramas, poems, and prose are noted for psychological insight and stylistic daring.
His works hung beside those of Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Franz Marc at Der Sturm gallery. Kokoschka's emotional involvement with his subjects remained essential throughout his life, influencing his landscapes and portraits.
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Oskar Kokoschka (born March 1, 1886, Pöchlarn, Austria—died February 22, 1980, Montreux, Switzerland) was an Austrian painter and writer who was one of the leading exponents of Expressionism. In his early portraits, gesture intensifies the psychological penetration of character; especially powerful among his later works are allegories of the artist’s emphatic humanism. His dramas, poems, and prose are significant for their psychological insight and stylistic daring.
Early life and works
When Kokoschka was three years old, his father went bankrupt in a financial crash. The family was forced to move to Vienna, where his father worked as a traveling salesman and his mother cared for the children on limited means. Tragedy entered the artist’s life early, when his eldest brother died in 1891. Kokoschka attended elementary and high school in Vienna and received his first artistic impressions from the stained-glass windows and Baroque frescoes of the Church of the Piarist Order, where he sang in the choir.
At age 18 Kokoschka won a scholarship to the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna. Soon he became an assistant teacher there, giving lessons at night and studying during the day. By 1907 he had also become a member of the Vienna Crafts Studio, which supplied him with commissions until 1909. At the School of Arts and Crafts he learned drawing, lithography, bookbinding, and other crafts. Kokoschka was profoundly dissatisfied with the school, however, because it was devoted entirely to the decorative arts and completely omitted from its curriculum the study of the human figure. The Vienna Crafts Studio, too, supported work only in the field of the decorative arts.
From the beginning Kokoschka’s primary artistic interest was the human figure; this interest was perhaps rooted in his deep concern for humanity, which transcended even his concern for art. He tried to find practical means to pursue this interest. In his night classes he hired the thin, muscular children of acrobats as models, teaching his pupils to make quick sketches. He used the human figure as a decorative motif in the postcards, bookbindings, and bookplates he designed for Vienna Crafts Studio commissions. Still, his real desire was to create monumental paintings. Kokoschka taught himself to paint in oils and executed some canvases, but economic necessity forced him to spend most of his time on decorative work, and the general artistic milieu around him continued to be unsupportive of his creative aspirations.
In 1908 he met the prominent Viennese architect Adolf Loos, who, having been impressed by one of Kokoschka’s early paintings, took an active interest in the young artist. Like Kokoschka, Loos rejected the prevailing decorative ideal, and he enthusiastically launched Kokoschka’s artistic career by introducing him to sympathetic artists, securing him commissions for paintings, and providing him with much-needed spiritual inspiration and support.
During this early period Kokoschka painted mostly landscapes, developing a technique of vibrant, fluid lines and expressive colors. At first glance, Kokoschka’s landscapes seem to follow the principles of the Impressionist school because of their bright colors, ephemeral delineation of shapes, and preoccupation with light. His vision, however, was different from that of the Impressionists, who sought to represent only what strikes the eye. Kokoschka sought to express through his colors the emotional aspects of a scene. This aim is exemplified in one of his earliest paintings, Dents du Midi (1909), a snowscape rendered in warm colors; an Impressionist might have used cool colors to evoke the actual light emanating from the snow.
At about this time Kokoschka began his career as a writer, composing several plays that heralded the new Expressionist theatre and expressed his compassionately humanist philosophy. The most important of them was Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (1907; “Murderer, Hope of Women”), a play that expressed Kokoschka’s sensitivity to the moral crises of modern life and that condemned the political injustices of contemporary European society. He said in 1933 that in this play he
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contrasted the callousness of our male society with my basic conception of man as mortal and woman as immortal; in the modern world it is only the murderer who wishes to reverse this state of affairs.
About 1908, shortly before his return to Vienna, Kokoschka began to paint portraits that show an extremely sensitive preoccupation with the character of the subjects, as well as an increasing concern with expressing this character through color. In early examples of these portraits, he made use of delicate, agitated lines to describe figures, which he painted in relatively naturalistic colors. Kokoschka exaggerated certain features and gestures of the sitters to express their psychological states. Among these portraits, which secured Kokoschka’s early reputation, are those of Hans Tietze and Erica Tietze-Conrat (1909), Peter Altenberg (1909), and Auguste Forel (1910).