BIOGRAPHY
1886
Oskar Kokoschka is born in Pöchlarn on the Danube in Lower Austria on 1
March 1886, the second child of the travelling salesman Gustav Kokoschka
(himself from a Prague goldsmith’s family) and of Maria Romana, née Loidl, a
forester’s daughter from the Alpine foothills of Steiermark. His childhood is
spent in Vienna.
1904-1906
After attending the Staatsrealschule
in the Viennese district of Währing, he enters the Vienna School of Decorative
Arts in 1904 (today the University of Applied Arts). His first oil paintings
date from 1905/06.
1908
Participates in the
‘Kunstschau 1908’ in Vienna. His first poetic work is published: Die träumenden Knaben (‘The dreaming
boys’), with eight colour lithographs. He paints his first landscape in
Budmerice in today’s Slovakia (though at the time it still belonged to Hungary
and was known as ‘Pudmericz’).
1909
Participates in the ‘Internationale Kunstschau 1909’ in Vienna. World
première of his drama Mörder Hoffnung der
Frauen (‘Murderer, the Hope of Women’).
1910
On 8 January, Kokoschka travels to Switzerland in the footsteps of his
sponsor and patron, the architect Adolf Loos. In Les Avants near Montreux he
paints the landscape Les Dents du Midi.
In Yvorne he paints the portrait of the Swiss natural scientist Auguste Forel. In
the sanatorium of Leysin, he paints the portraits of aristocrats suffering from
tuberculosis.
Travels to Berlin in order to support Herwarth Walden in editing Der Sturm. Walden’s progressive journal publishes numerous drawings by Kokoschka and his drama Mörder Hoffnung der Frauen.
1911
Participates in the Hagenbund exhibition. Illustrates Albert Ehrenstein’s
novella Tubutsch.
1912
In January, he gives the lecture ‘Vom Bewusstsein der Gesichte’ (‘On the
awareness of visions’). He begins a love affair with Alma Mahler. From October
onwards he is for a year Anton von Kenner’s assistant for nude drawing at the
Vienna School of Decorative Arts.
1913
Travels to Italy with Alma
Mahler, subsequently begins work on the Windsbraut
(‘Bride of the wind’). Illustrates Die chinesische
Mauer (‘The Chinese Wall’) by Karl Kraus and his own novella Der gefesselte Kolumbus (‘The captive
Columbus’).
1914
Provides fresco designs for
a crematorium in Breslau, whose construction is prevented by the outbreak of
the First World War.
1915
Separation from Alma
Mahler. Volunteers for military service with the 15th Imperial
Dragoons’ Regiment. On the Ukrainian front, a bullet to the head and a bayonet
to the chest leave him severely injured.
1916
Military deployment on the
Isonzo front; wounded once again.
1919
The Munich doll maker Hermine
Moos creates a life-size doll in the form of Alma Mahler, which serves
Kokoschka as a model in his studio in Dresden. His stage works Der brennende Dornbusch (‘The Burning
Thorn-bush’) and Hiob are performed
at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. Appointed
Professor at the Academy in Dresden.
1923
Travels to Zurich in order
to prepare his exhibition at the Wolfsberg Art Salon. He then travels on to
Lucerne and Montreux, staying in Les Avants and Blonay, where he paints two views
of Lake Geneva.
1924-1930
Extended travels take Kokoschka back and forth across Europe, Asia Minor
and North Africa and finally lead to the annulment of his contract with the
Dresden Academy. In 1927, the Zurich Kunsthaus puts on the hitherto biggest-ever
solo exhibition of Kokoschka’s work.
1931-1933
Extended sojourns in Paris. Kokoschka makes several drawings of the American dancer Mary Meerson.
1934
Travels to Prague, where he
becomes acquainted with his future wife, Oldriska-Aloisie (known as ‘Olda’) in
the house of her father, the lawyer Karel Bretislav Palkovsky.
1935
Paints a portrait of the founding president of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš G.
Masaryk. Their friendship results in Kokoschka’s acquiring Czech citizenship.
1937
Prints a poster with a call to aid Basque children in reaction to the
bombing of Guernica. He is represented by eight works at the Munich exhibition
of ‘degenerate’ art, Entartete Kunst.
1938
Represented by 22 works at
the exhibition Twentieth Century German
Art in London. At Olda’s prompting he flees with her to England from the
advancing National Socialists.
1939
Founds the Free German
League of Culture in London. In the Grand Hotel National in
Lucerne, the art dealer Theodor Fischer auctions off 125 works of art confiscated
from German museums, including nine paintings by Kokoschka. The Kunstmuseum of Basel
acquires the Bride of the wind in
Berlin. Moves to Polperro (Cornwall). Begins work on the painting The Crab (London, Tate Gallery), which
is an allegory of England’s stance towards Czechoslovakia.
1941
Marries Olda in Hampstead. Stays in Elrig near Port William in Scotland,
where he makes many crayon drawings.
1943
Two longer stays in North Wales. Moves to Park Lane in London.
1944
Visits Ullapool in Ross-shire, where he makes further crayon drawings. In
Elrig, he becomes acquainted with the schoolgirl Minona Margarita McEwen, who
comes originally from South America. He makes portraits of her in crayon and
one in oils.
1945
In the winter, Kokoschka has his poster Christ helps the starving children hung in the London tube stations
in order to support the call to donate to charity against hunger.
1947
Receives British citizenship. In April: A Kokoschka retrospective opens
in the Basel Kunsthalle, which moves to the Zurich Kunsthaus in the following
summer. In Sierre he paints Werner Reinhart’s portrait and several landscapes
of the mountains of Canton Valais, including two views of the Matterhorn.
1948
Participates in the 24th Biennale in Venice, with 16
paintings. Kokoschka paints a self-portrait in Fiesole, then city views in
Florence. Exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
1949
5 May – 15 July: Visits Rome. There, in the house of the German archaeologist
Ludwig Curtius, he becomes acquainted with the composer and conductor Wilhelm
Furtwängler. Kokoschka retrospective in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
1950
He paints the Prometheus triptych
commissioned by Count Antoine Seilern for the entrance hall ceiling of his
London house at 56 Princes Gate on Exhibition Road, South Kensington.
1953
Opening of the International Summer Academy, in which Kokoschka gives
classes entitled ‘School of seeing’. After the end of the course, he draws a
series of crayon nudes. He moves into the Villa Delphin in Villeneuve.
1954
He paints the Thermopylae triptych
for Hamburg University and in August a portrait of the Catalan cellist Pablo
Casals in the Hotel Bellevue in Sierre.
1955
Production of Mozart’s Magic Flute
in the Felsenreitschule (‘Rock riding school’) in Salzburg, with stage
designs and costumes by Kokoschka.
1956
At the beginning of the
year, he makes a tour of Greece. In the autumn, he designs costumes and sets
for a production of A Midsummer Night’s
Dream for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, which,
however, does not come about.
1957
Landscape painting Lake Geneva
with steamship.
1960
Works on the set and
costume designs for Ferdinand Raimund’s Moisasurs
Zauberfluch (‘The Magic
Curse of Moisasur’). Awarded
the Erasmus Prize in Copenhagen. Honorary doctorate from Oxford University. Set
designs for a performance of his play Orpheus
and Eurydice in the Atelier-Theater am Naschmarkt in Vienna.
1961
Travels through Greece,
during which Kokoschka prepares the lithographs of the series Bekenntnis zu Hellas (‘Homage to
Hellas’) and makes crayon drawings of ancient monuments.
1962
At the Burgtheater in Vienna, Kokoschka works on the décor for Ferdinand
Raimund’s Die gefesselte Phantasie (‘The Fettered Imagination’). In the British Museum, he fills a
sketchbook with crayon drawings after the Bassae Frieze. Kokoschka retrospective
in the Tate Gallery in London.
1963
Illustrates Shakespeare’s King
Lear. Kokoschka designs the sets and costumes for a production of Giuseppe
Verdi’s Masked Ball given in the
Teatro Comunale at the 26th Florence May Festival. On a journey
through Apulia, Kokoschka sketches the lithograph series Apulia.
1964
Begins work on his illustrations for Homer’s Odyssee.
1965
Travels to Morocco, where Kokoschka draws the lithographs of the series Marrakesh. At the Lucerne Festival, he draws
portraits of the Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter.
19 October: Opening
night in Geneva of Mozart’s Magic Flute with
Kokoschka’s décor.
1966
In Cadenabbia, he paints
the portrait of the former German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Kokoschka retrospective
in the Zurich Kunsthaus. At the request of the publisher Axel Springer, he
paints a view of East Berlin from the Axel Springer Skyscraper. Draws the
lithographs of the series Saul and David.
1967
Works on his illustrations for the comedy The Frogs by Aristophanes. In preparation for this
series, Kokoschka draws frogs from nature in Gstaad.
1969
Self-portrait between devil and muse. Travels to Greece and Cyprus.
1970
Etchings on Kleist’s Penthesilea.
1972
He paints Peer Gynt.
1973
Begins the painting Mal’Occhio as a reference to his failing eyesight. Travels to Israel, where he
draws the portraits for his series Jerusalem
Faces. Founding of the Association for the Research and Documentation of
the Work of Oskar Kokoschka, based in the house where he was born in Pöchlarn.
Lithographs for the Trojan Women by Euripides.
1974
Honorary citizenship of Austria. Good Friday: the consecration of his
mosaic Ecce Homines in the Church of
St Nicholas in Hamburg. For a film of his Comenius dramas by Gyula Trebitsch and
Stanislav Barabas, Kokoschka draws scenes from the life of the Moravian
pedagogue.
1975
Illustrations for Knut Hamsun’s novel Pan and for the short story Einstein
überquert die Elbe bei Hamburg (‘Einstein Crosses the Elbe
near Hamburg’) by Siegfried
Lenz.
1980
22 February: dies in the Montreux clinic.
1981
Olda Kokoschka gives her husband’s written archives to the Zentralbibliothek
Zürich. Right until her death, she continues to make further donations of manuscripts
acquired at auction or from antiquarian book dealers.
1988
1 February: Olda Kokoschka founds the ‘Fondation à la mémoire de Oskar
Kokoschka’, based in Vevey, and provides it with pictures from her possession.
In the years thereafter, she expands the collection by gifts and purchases.
2004
22 June: Death of Olda
Kokoschka