PARIS - Expo KOKOSCHKA - Déchaînement de l'énergie nucléaire (192)
OSKAR KOKOSCHKA
Oskar Kokoschka, born March 1, 1886 in Pöchlarn, near Vienna, Austria-Hungary and died February 22, 1980 in Montreux, Switzerland, was an Austrian expressionist painter and writer.
From 1905 to 1909, Kokoschka studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, where he was notably a pupil of Gustav Klimt. He participated in the exhibitions of modernism led by Klimt.
Painter, but also writer, playwright and poet, Oskar Kokoschka thus appears as a committed artist, driven by the artistic and intellectual upheavals of Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century. By his desire to express the intensity of the moods of his time, and a certain talent for provocation, he became for critics the terrible child of Vienna from 1908 where, supported by Gustav Klimt, he inspired a new generation of artists, including Egon Schiele. Portrait painter of Viennese society, Kokoschka strives to reveal the inner life of his models, even if it means shocking his sponsors with his acerbic point of view, putting truth above beauty.
His painting, at this time, evolved rapidly. In 1915, he enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, he was seriously injured during a fight in Ukraine, then the following year by a grenade attack.
In 1917 he moved to Dresden. But a tireless traveler, in the 1920s he undertook incessant journeys in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. His financial fragility forced him to return to Vienna, which experienced major political unrest from the beginning of the 1930s, forcing him to leave for Prague in 1934 where he met the woman who would become his wife, Olda Palkovská. Qualified by the Nazis as a "degenerate" artist, his works were removed from German museums. Kokoschka then fully committed himself to the defense of freedom in the face of fascism. Forced into exile, he managed to flee to Great Britain in 1938 where he took part in the international resistance.
After the war, he became a reference figure on the European intellectual scene and participated in the cultural reconstruction of a devastated and divided continent. Distancing himself from Germanic culture and language, he moved to Villeneuve, in French-speaking Switzerland, in 1953. He spent the last twenty-seven years of his life there. The works of recent years bear witness to a pictorial radicalism close to his first works, in their absence of concessions. His belief in the subversive power of painting, a vector of emancipation and education, remained unshakeable until his death.
PARIS - Expo KOKOSCHKA - Déchaînement de l'énergie nucléaire (192)
OSKAR KOKOSCHKA
Oskar Kokoschka, born March 1, 1886 in Pöchlarn, near Vienna, Austria-Hungary and died February 22, 1980 in Montreux, Switzerland, was an Austrian expressionist painter and writer.
From 1905 to 1909, Kokoschka studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, where he was notably a pupil of Gustav Klimt. He participated in the exhibitions of modernism led by Klimt.
Painter, but also writer, playwright and poet, Oskar Kokoschka thus appears as a committed artist, driven by the artistic and intellectual upheavals of Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century. By his desire to express the intensity of the moods of his time, and a certain talent for provocation, he became for critics the terrible child of Vienna from 1908 where, supported by Gustav Klimt, he inspired a new generation of artists, including Egon Schiele. Portrait painter of Viennese society, Kokoschka strives to reveal the inner life of his models, even if it means shocking his sponsors with his acerbic point of view, putting truth above beauty.
His painting, at this time, evolved rapidly. In 1915, he enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, he was seriously injured during a fight in Ukraine, then the following year by a grenade attack.
In 1917 he moved to Dresden. But a tireless traveler, in the 1920s he undertook incessant journeys in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. His financial fragility forced him to return to Vienna, which experienced major political unrest from the beginning of the 1930s, forcing him to leave for Prague in 1934 where he met the woman who would become his wife, Olda Palkovská. Qualified by the Nazis as a "degenerate" artist, his works were removed from German museums. Kokoschka then fully committed himself to the defense of freedom in the face of fascism. Forced into exile, he managed to flee to Great Britain in 1938 where he took part in the international resistance.
After the war, he became a reference figure on the European intellectual scene and participated in the cultural reconstruction of a devastated and divided continent. Distancing himself from Germanic culture and language, he moved to Villeneuve, in French-speaking Switzerland, in 1953. He spent the last twenty-seven years of his life there. The works of recent years bear witness to a pictorial radicalism close to his first works, in their absence of concessions. His belief in the subversive power of painting, a vector of emancipation and education, remained unshakeable until his death.