Oskar Kokoschka

Oskar Kokoschka

(b. 1886 Pöchlarn, Austria – immigrated to Great Britain 1938, then Switzerland 1953 – d. Montreux, Switzerland 1980)

The Donkey Coloured chalks on paper 20.5 x 30 cm Inscribed to Pamela Hodin – ‘the beautiful one’ Private Collection

This playful sketch from late in the artist’s career is one of several made for the eminent Czech émigré art historian J. P. Hodin (1905–1995), author of a Kokoschka monograph (1966) and dedicated to his wife Pamela. Kokoschka studied at the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule (school of applied arts) and in 1907 became an associate of the Wiener Werkstätte design workshops, going on to become Austria’s most celebrated Expressionist painter. His defence of Max Liebermann first brought him into opposition to the Nazi regime; he fled to Czechoslovakia in 1934 and arrived in England in 1939, where he was active among the émigré network. He moved to Switzerland in his last years.