Oskar Kokoschka : Early Portraits, 1909-1914

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) is one of Austria's finest Expressionist artists.

His paintings are renowned and admired for their vivid colour and restless energy.

This book focuses on the early portraits that Kokoschka painted in Vienna and Berlin on the eve of World War I.

Perhaps the best known and most highly esteemed of all his works, these portraits are examples of Kokoschka's use of ecaggeration and distortion of colour to convey deep emotioni and psychological tension. they also present a look at many of the important intellectual figures of the era, for their subjects include Peter Altenbery, Adolf Loos, Alma Mahler and Kokoschka himself (in his "Self Portrait as Knight Errant").

This illustrated book includes not only these oil portraits but also some of Kokoschka's drawings of the same sitters and a selection of the postcards, fans and posters he made for the Wiener Werkstatte in the period before the portraits were completed, all of which shed light on his early development. There are also discussions on the culture and history of Vienna and Berlin in the pre-war period; Kokoschka's shift from Art Nouveau to Expressionism; his place within the German and Austrian Expressionist movements; his reception in the United States; and more.

This book is the catalogue for a major exhibition that opens at the Neue galerie, New York on 15th March 2002 and runs until 10th June.

The show then travels to the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany from 4th July to 29th September 2002.