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Oskar Kokoschka: Zeichnungen
Artist: Oskar Kokoschka (Austrian, 1886-1980)
Publisher: Verlag Der Sturm, Berlin, [1913?]
Date: [about 1913]
Dimensions:
Portfolio: H: 16 13/16 in. (427 mm); W: 12 1/2 in. (318 mm); Depth: 11/16 in. (18 mm).
Leaf: H: 16 9/16 in. (421 mm); W: 12 1/16 in. (307 mm).
Medium: Reproduction: 20 line block reproductions of drawings on ivory laid paper.
Text: letterpress.
Classification: Books
Credit Line: Gift of Molly and Walter Bareiss
Object number: 1984.621
Label Text:Oskar Kokoschka’s Berlin dealer Herwarth Walden reproduced a number of his drawings in his influential Expressionist periodical Der Sturm in 1910 and again in 1913 in this portfolio Zwanzig Zeichnungen (Twenty Drawings). The most sensational of the drawings were his illustrations of his own scandalous play Murderer, Hope of Women, first performed in Vienna in 1909. Set in barbaric antiquity, the play dramatizes the eternal clash between the sexes. Here, knife in hand, a man whose facial features and shaved head resemble those of Kokoschka himself murderously towers in triumph over the woman, as the chorus looks on. The spiny and bristling lines and sharply splintered forms suggest tattoos, tribal scarifications, nerve endings, and wounds, while vividly conveying the violent cruelty of this drama of desire and blood-lust.
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In Collection(s)