Oskar Kokoschka

Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright.  He is best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes.

Kokoschka's first jobs were postcards and drawings for children. In his early career he did portraits of Viennese celebrities. He was in the Austrian army in World War I and was wounded. At the hospital, the doctors said he was mentally unstable. He traveled across Europe and painted the landscape.

Kokoschka had an affair with Alma Mahler. She stopped the relationship.  He continued to love her his entire life. One of his greatest works  The Bride of the Wind (The Tempest), is a tribute to her. His poem Allos Markar was about this relationship.

Deemed a degenerate by the Nazis, Kokoschka left Austria in 1934 for Prague.  In 1938, when the Czechs were coming for Wehrmacht, he fled to the United Kingdom.  He stayed there during the war.

Kokoschka became a British citizen in 1946.  In 1978 he got back Austrian citizenship. He traveled to the United States in 1947.  Then he moved to Switzerland.  He lived there the rest of his life. He died in Montreux.

Artworks
1909: Lotte Franzos
1909: Martha Hirsch I
1909: Hans and Erika Tietze
1909: St. Veronica with the Sudarium
1909: Les Dents du Midi
1909: Children Playing
1910: Still Life with Lamb and Hyacinth
1910: Rudolf Blümner
1911: Hermann Schwarzwald I
1911: Egon Wellesz
1911: Crucifixion
1912: Two Nudes
1913: Landscape in the Dolomites (with Cima Tre Croci)
1913: The Tempest
1913: Carl Moll
1913: Still Life with Putto and Rabbit
1915: Knight Errant
1917: Portrait of the Artist's Mother
1917: Lovers with Cat
1917: Stockholm Harbour
1920: The Power of Music
1919: Dresden, Neustadt I
1921: Dresden, Neustadt II
1921: Two Girls
1922: Self-Portrait at the Easel
1923: Self-Portrait with Crossed Arms
1925: Amsterdam, Kloveniersburgwal I
1924: Venice, Boats on the Dogana
1925: Toledo
1926: Mandrill
1926: Deer
1929: Arab Women and Child
1932: Girl with Flowers
1934: Prague, View from the Villa Kramář
1937: Olda Palkovská
1938: Prague - Nostalgia
1940: The Crab
1941: Anschluss - Alice in Wonderland
1941: The Red Egg
1948: Self-Portrait (Fiesole)
1962: Storm Tide in Hamburg
1966: The Rejected Lover
1971: Time, Gentlemen, Please

Writings
Kokoschka's literary works are as odd and interesting as his art. His memoir, A Sea Ringed with Visions, is as wildly psychedelic as anything written by others under the influence of actual hallucinogens. His short play "Murderer, the Hope of Women" is often called the first Expressionist drama. His Orpheus und Eurydike (1918) became an opera by Ernst Krenek.

Bibliography
1908: Die traumenden Knaben (The Dreaming Youths) Vienna: Wiener Werkstätte (Originally published in an edition of 500 by the Wiener Werkstätte. Unsold copies numbered 1-275, were reissued in 1917 by Kurt Wolff Verlag.)
1909: Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (Murderer, the Hope of Women) (Play)
1913: Der Gefesslte Columbus(Columbus Bound). [Berlin]: Fritz Gurlitt, [1913] (known as Der Weisse Tiertoter (The White Animal Slayer).
1919: Orpheus and Eurydike, in: Vier Dramen: Orpheus und Eurydike; Der brennende Dornbusch; Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen; [and] Hiob. Berlin
1962: A Sea Ringed with Visions. London: Thames & Hudson  (Autobiography)
1974: My Life; translated (from "Mein Leben") by David Britt. London: Thames & Hudson

First productions of plays
 1907: Sphinx und Strohmann. Komödie für Automaten. 29 March 1909 at Cabaret Fledermaus, Vienna
 1909: Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen
 1911: Der brennende Dornbusch
 1913: Sphinx und Strohmann, Ein Curiosum. 14 April 1917 in the Dada-Galerie, Zürich
 1917: Hiob (an enlarged version of Sphinx und Strohmann, 1907)
 1919: Orpheus und Eurydike
 1923: new version as opera libretto; music by Ernst Krenek. 27 November 1926 at the  Staatstheater, Kassel
 1936–38/1972: Comenius

Tributes
 The Children's television show Hey Arnold! features a character named Oskar Kokoschka.  He is portrayed as a deadbeat in Arnold's families boarding house.
 A UK Midlands based 1980's pop group called themselves 'Oskar Kokoschka'.  In 1986 they released a 12 inch EP featuring the songs 'Waiting til it all Blows Over' and 'Letting the water out'.

References

1886 births
1980 deaths
Austrian painters
British painters
Austrian poets
Austrian playwrights
British poets
British playwrights