Museum der Moderne Salzburg
10 November 2018―17 February 2019
The prints of
Oskar Kokoschka (Pöchlarn, AT, 1886―Montreux, CH, 1980) occupy a prominent
position in his output. He first explored the technique while studying art in
turn-of-the-century Vienna; over the years, and especially in the final decades
of his long life, he built a sizable graphic oeuvre. The Museum der Moderne Salzburg
possesses an exceptionally comprehensive collection of Kokoschka’s prints and
has repeatedly mounted presentations of selections from this treasure since it was
established.
Oskar Kokoschka. The Printed Oeuvre in the Context of Its Time is
the first major exhibition entirely focused on Kokoschka’s lithographs and
etchings.
Divided into eight chapters, it showcases ca. 210 pieces to trace an
arc from his controversial early work across the portraits of his Dresden years
to his late oeuvre, which speaks to his admiration for Greek art and culture,
and embeds the various groups of works—all shown as complete sets—in their
historical contexts. Kokoschka was an attentive observer of current affairs,and
some of the works on display show him engaging critically with the political
developments of his time.
“The exhibition sheds light on the creative
development and evolving views of an artist who was a keen-eyed witness to the
history of the twentieth century. Rebelling against the art nouveau aesthetic
that dominated in turn-of-the-century Vienna, Kokoschka devised an expressive
visual idiom that reflects the apprehensiveness and inner turmoil of the
period,” Barbara Herzog, curator of the show, explains.
The presentation opens
with Kokoschka’s works for the Wiener Werkstätte, created while he was still a
student at the Kunstgewerbeschule.
Many of the works in which he translated his stormy affair with Alma
Mahler into art reflect the anxiety that men in turn-of-the-century Vienna felt
in the face of the nascent women’s movement. After the separation from Alma,
Kokoschka volunteered for military service. Shocked by what he witnessed and
wounded in battle, he became a pacifist.
When the National Socialists seized
power and vilified his art as “degenerate,” he escaped to England. After the
war, he did not return to Austria, choosing to settle in Switzerland instead.
In lithographic cycles on themes from classical mythology, the late Kokoschka
paid tribute to the legacy of antiquity, which, he believed, was a vital source
of ethical as much as aesthetic guidance. Serving as artistic director of the
Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts—the “school of seeing” that
he and Friedrich Welz cofounded in 1953—for over a decade, he earned a place of
honor in the annals of art in Salzburg.
Oskar Kokoschka Pietà, 1909
Poster for the Internationale Kunstschau Wien, Color lithograph, Museum der Moderne Salzburg
Oskar Kokoschka Selbstbildnis (Sturmplakat), 1910
(Self-portrait [Poster for "Der Sturm"])
Color lithograph, Museum der Moderne
Oskar Kokoschka The face of woman, 1913,
From the series: Der gefesselte Kolumbus, (The Bound Columbus), publ. 1920/1921,
Oskar Kokoschka Selbstbildnis von zwei Seiten, 1923
(Self-portrait from two sides), Colored chalk lithograph, Museum der Moderne