Oskar Kokoschka: Zeichnungen

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Oskar Kokoschka: Zeichnungen

Artist Oskar Kokoschka (Austrian, 1886-1980)

Publisher Verlag Der Sturm, Berlin, [1913?]

Date[about 1913]

DimensionsPortfolio: 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).

MediumReproduction: 20 line block reproductions of drawings on ivory laid paper. Text: letterpress.

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineGift of Molly and Walter Bareiss

Object number

1984.621

Not on View

Label TextOskar 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.Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, European Expressionist and Cubist Works on Paper: 1900-1930, December 2, 2011-March 11, 2012 (University of Toledo Student Exhibition).