Book Description

Oskar Kokoschka ((1886-1980) is one of Austria’s finest and most revered Expressionist artists. His paintings are renowned and admired for their vivid color and restless energy. This significant book focuses on the early portraits that Kokoschka painted in Vienna and Berlin on the eve of World War I. Perhaps the best known and most highly esteemed of all his works, these portraits are wonderful examples of Kokoschka’s use of exaggeration and distortion of color to convey deep emotion and psychological tension. They also present a fascinating look at many of the important intellectual figures of the era, for their subjects include Peter Altenberg, Adolf Loos, Alma Mahler, and Kokoschka himself (in his Self Portrait as Knight Errant). This beautifully illustrated book includes not only these arresting oil portraits but also some of Kokoschka’s drawings of the same sitters and a selection of the postcards, fans, and posters he made for the Wiener Werkstätte in the period before the portraits were completed, all of which shed light on his early development. There are also discussions by eminent authorities on the culture and history of Vienna and Berlin in the prewar period; Kokoschka’s shift from Art Nouveau to Expressionism; his place within the German and Austrian Expressionist movements; his reception in the United States; and much more.