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'.

## Infobox (artist)

- **name**: Oskar Kokoschka
- **image**: Oskar Kokoschka (1963) by Erling Mandelmann.jpg
- **caption**: Oskar Kokoschka in 1963
- **image size**: 200px
- **birth name**: Oskar Kokoschka
- **birth date**: 1 March 1886
- **birth place**: Pöchlarn, Austria
- **death place**: Montreux, Switzerland
- **nationality**: Austrian
 British people, British
- **field**: Painting, poet, playwright
- **movement**: Expressionism