48 Facts About Oskar Kokoschka

Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expressionist movement.

The second child of Gustav Josef Kokoschka, a Czech goldsmith, and Maria Romana Kokoschka, Oskar Kokoschka was born in Pochlarn.

Oskar Kokoschka had a sister, Berta, born in 1889; a brother, Bohuslav, born in 1892; and an elder brother who died in infancy.

Oskar Kokoschka entered a Realschule in 1897, a type of secondary school, where emphasis was placed on the study of modern subjects such as the sciences and language.

One of Oskar Kokoschka's teachers suggested he pursue a career in the fine arts after being impressed by some of his drawings.

Against his father's will, Oskar Kokoschka applied to the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, now the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Oskar Kokoschka received a scholarship and was one of few applicants to be accepted.

Oskar Kokoschka studied there from 1904 to 1909 and was influenced by his teacher Carl Otto Czeschka in developing an original style.

Oskar Kokoschka had no formal training in painting and so approached the medium without regard to the "traditional" or "correct" way to paint.

Later, Oskar Kokoschka said that this exercise provided "the basis of [his] artistic training".

From Comenius's theories, Oskar Kokoschka adopted the belief that students benefit most from using their five senses to facilitate reasoning.

Oskar Kokoschka taught in Vienna from 1911 to 1913 and then again in Dresden from 1919 to 1923.

Oskar Kokoschka neglected the conventional structured methodologies and theories assumed by art educators, and instead taught through storytelling infused with mythological themes and dramatic emotion.

In considering his own art, Oskar Kokoschka expressed that inspiration stemmed from daily observations that he collected optically while engaging with his contemporary surroundings.

Further, Oskar Kokoschka granted the viewer with the task of interpreting the image based upon how they experience the vision within their own realm of consciousness.

In 1908 Oskar Kokoschka was offered the opportunity of submitting works to the first Vienna Kunstschau.

Oskar Kokoschka received a commission from the Director of the Wiener Werkstatte, Fritz Warndorfer, for color images that would supplement a children's book and be displayed at the exhibition.

Oskar Kokoschka took the liberty of producing images that would serve as illustrations to the poem he wrote a year earlier, Die traumenden Knaben, which took on the form of an autobiographical adolescent fantasy that was inappropriate for a young audience.

Oskar Kokoschka adopted the bold lines and expressive colors of traditional European folk art and juxtaposed them with the stylized ornamentation and two-dimensional bodies of Jugendstil.

Austrian architect Adolf Loos befriended Oskar Kokoschka and introduced him to other avant-garde members who then became his subjects in a series of portrait paintings.

Oskar Kokoschka painted a bulk of his portraiture between 1909 and 1914.

Unlike many of his contemporaries who were receiving portrait commissions, such as Edvard Munch, Oskar Kokoschka maintained complete artistic freedom because they were generally not ordered directly by the sitter.

However, Oskar Kokoschka adopted elements of the modern style which involved incorporating hands within the composition to further capture the emotion expressed through an individual's gestures.

Oskar Kokoschka's portraits incorporate an expressive color palette similar to those featured in the works of German Die Brucke artists at the time.

Oskar Kokoschka's portraits differed from those of his contemporaries due to his belief in the symbolic importance of the act of painting itself, which is emphasized by visible brushstrokes and areas of exposed canvas.

Oskar Kokoschka integrated painterly techniques with those used in drawing, as seen in his use of vibrant and contrasting colors, rapid brushstrokes, anxious scratch marks, and uneven handling.

Erica Tietze-Conrat explained that while Oskar Kokoschka was creating their portrait, he encouraged them to move freely and continue their work at the two desks that were situated adjacent to one another by a window.

Shortly after beginning the painting, Oskar Kokoschka set down his paintbrush and began using only his fingers.

Oskar Kokoschka used his fingernails to scratch thin lines into the paint, which appear in outlines and areas of hatching and crosshatching, as well as throughout the background.

Oskar Kokoschka moved to Berlin in 1910, the same year the Neue Secession was established in Berlin.

Twenty-eight drawings by Oskar Kokoschka were published in the magazine during its first year; and although he was featured significantly less, Oskar Kokoschka remained a contributor to the periodical.

The twentieth Issue of the periodical featured both Oskar Kokoschka's first cover illustration, which supplemented Morder, Hoffnung der Frauen, as well as the artist's first literary contribution.

Oskar Kokoschka continued to travel back and forth between Vienna and Berlin over the next four years.

Oskar Kokoschka had a passionate, often stormy affair with Alma Mahler.

Oskar Kokoschka married Walter Gropius in 1915 and lived with him until their divorce in 1920.

Oskar Kokoschka continued to love Alma Mahler his entire life, and one of his most acclaimed works, The Bride of the Wind, is expressive of their relationship.

The poet Georg Trakl visited the studio while Oskar Kokoschka was painting this masterpiece.

Oskar Kokoschka volunteered for service as a cavalryman in the Austrian army in World War I, and in 1915 was seriously wounded.

Oskar Kokoschka returned to Vienna in the Autumn of 1931, where he spent six months in the home he had purchased for his parents eleven years earlier.

In honor of the humanitarian efforts of the City Counsel, Oskar Kokoschka decided to illustrate children playing outside of the palace in the foreground of the composition which otherwise consisted of a cityscape.

In Prague his name was adopted by a group of other expatriate artists, the Oskar-Kokoschka-Bund, though Kokoschka declined participation with their group.

Oskar Kokoschka left the bustling city center of London and settled in Polperro, in Cornwall.

Oskar Kokoschka travelled briefly to the United States in 1947 before settling in Villeneuve, Switzerland in 1953, where he lived the rest of his life.

Oskar Kokoschka spent these years as an educator at the Internationale Sommer Akademie fur Bildenden Kunste, while working on stage designs and publishing a collection of his writings.

Oskar Kokoschka died on 22 February 1980 in Montreux, at the age of 93, eight days before his 94th birthday, of complications after contracting influenza.

Oskar Kokoschka had much in common with his contemporary Max Beckmann.

Oskar Kokoschka was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1959 New Year Honours.

Oskar Kokoschka received the Erasmus Prize in 1960 together with Marc Chagall.