Oskar Kokoschka

Gift of the Joseph H. Hazen Foundation in honor of William S. Lieberman

Golda Meir (I) Prime Minister (plate 1) from Jerusalem Faces http://www.moma.org/collection/works/14272

Purchase Fund

Woman with Child and Death (Frau mit Kind und Tod) (plate, folio 7) from Die Chinesische Mauer (The Great Wall of China) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/15973

The Louis E. Stern Collection

Ann Eliza Reed http://www.moma.org/collection/works/26731

Gift of John Loring in memory of China Loring

Rider and Sailboat (Reiter und Segelschiff) (postcard) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/68284

The Louis E. Stern Collection

Couples in Conversation (Paare im Gespräch) (in-text plate, folio 7) from Die träumenden Knaben (The Dreaming Boys) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/26725

Portrait of Karl Kraus

Portrait of Karl Kraus https://www.wikiart.org/en/oskar-kokoschka/not_detected_235934

Presented by Mrs Olda Kokoschka, the artist's widow 1990

Tower Bridge I http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kokoschka-tower-bridge-i-t05779

Transferred from the Museum Library

Käthe Richter (plate, loose leaf) from the periodical Das Kunstblatt, vol. 1, no. 10 (Oct 1917) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/72789

Bacchus (Bob Gesinus Visser I, 1933)

Bacchus (Bob Gesinus Visser I, 1933) https://collections.artsmia.org/art/1434/

Gift of Samuel A. Berger

The Concert II (Das Konzert II) from the series The Concert (Das Konzert) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/68039

Self-Portrait with Hand by his face.

Self-Portrait with Hand by his face. https://www.wikiart.org/en/oskar-kokoschka/not_detected_235874

The Awakenings

The Awakenings https://www.wikiart.org/en/oskar-kokoschka/not_detected_235927

Presented by Mrs Olda Kokoschka, the artist's widow 1990

Houses of Parliament II http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kokoschka-houses-of-parliament-ii-t05777

Given anonymously

The Dream (Der Traum) from the portfolio Shakespeare-Visions (Shakespeare-Visionen) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/72893

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William Mazer

Doctor Emma Veronika Sanders http://www.moma.org/collection/works/80707

The Wife Leading the Man

The Wife Leading the Man https://collections.artsmia.org/art/7272/

The Sleepers

The Sleepers https://www.wikiart.org/en/oskar-kokoschka/not_detected_235926

Transferred from the Museum Library

Plate (folio 4) from Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (Murderer, Hope of Women) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/18933

The Louis E. Stern Collection

Hay Harvest on the Farm in Scotland (Heuernte auf dem Gut in Schottland) (plate, folio 6) from Ann Eliza Reed http://www.moma.org/collection/works/26736

In his paintings, Oskar Kokoschka wished to make visible the invisible; he wanted to capture and describe the essence of his subject matter. In Cologne Cathedral, Kokoschka effectively portrays the grandeur of this giant Gothic cathedral while also showing the morning light streaming through the stained glass windows and dancing along the nave. He painted this interior scene from September 28 to October 17, 1956, every morning from 9 a.m. to noon, with the exception of Sundays when Mass was held. Each morning, workers connected to the Cathedral's workshop suspended a wooden balcony from the triforium, a gallery half way up the walls, from where Kokoschka painted this scene. Cologne Cathedral was severely bombed during World War II and most of the building repairs were completed by 1956, the year Kokoschka painted this. The stained glass window in the south transept was destroyed in the bombings and was temporarily filled with plain glass until recently. In August 2007, German artist Gerhard Richter created a new stained glass window for the cathedral made of 11,500 square panes meant to resemble the digital picture element of pixels.

Cologne Cathedral https://collections.artsmia.org/art/1943/

Title plate from The Dreaming Youths

Title plate from The Dreaming Youths https://collections.artsmia.org/art/90278/

Despite its early date (Oskar Kokoschka described it as his second finished painting), this portrait already reveals the artist's great gifts as a portraitist and the hallmarks of his highly personal form of Expressionism. Like Max Beckmann and Chaim Soutine, Kokoschka used calculated distortions of line and color in a highly individual manner to give emotional force to his paintings. As a student in Vienna, he was influenced not only by the German Expressionist artists of Die Briicke (The Bridge), but also by Gustav Klimt and by Jugendstijl art, as shown by the sensitive, nervous line and the touch of melancholy that came to characterize his work.Kokoschka met his sitter through the avant-garde architect Adolf Loos, who introduced him to Vienna's high society and thus provided him with subjects for a penetrating series of portraits. As tailor to the Austrian imperial court, Ernst Ebenstein was one of the most accomplished and admired members in the world of Viennese high fashion. During a visit to the Art Institute in 1958, Kokoschka remembered him as kind and generous. Ebenstein had offered to make the artist some clothes and had taught him a great deal about anatomy based on his sartorial experience as a perceptive observer of the human body. Kokoschka's affection for his sitter seems to be reflected in the compassionate yet unflinching honesty with which he recorded the signs of age on his face and hands. The sitter has been caught in a moment of relaxed introspection, his gaze averted from the viewer, his social persona momentarily laid aside to reveal his inner self. Even the sitter's impeccable black attire has a crumpled, weathered quality that bespeaks human vulnerability and frailty. As in other portraits by Kokoschka, the hands constitute a psychological focus as strong as that of the face. The artist's expressive distortions are especially evident here. Painted in a vivid orange, these gnarled and bony hands seem to express the man's very essence and become the locus of his professional and psychological identity. —Entry, Margherita Andreotti, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2, The Joseph Winterbotham Collection at The Art Institute of Chicago (1994), p. 136-137. Joseph Winterbotham Collection

Commerce Counselor Ebenstein https://www.artic.edu/artworks/2893/

Purchase Fund

The Eavesdropper (Des Lauscher) (plate, folio 18) from Die Chinesische Mauer (The Great Wall of China) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/15977

Rose Gershwin Fund

Port of Hamburg http://www.moma.org/collection/works/78442

Albert Ehrenstein

Albert Ehrenstein https://www.wikiart.org/en/oskar-kokoschka/not_detected_235868

Robinson

Robinson https://www.wikiart.org/en/oskar-kokoschka/not_detected_235929

Presented by Mrs Olda Kokoschka, the artist's widow, in honour of the directorship of Sir Alan Bowness 1988

Loreley http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kokoschka-loreley-t05486

Gift of John Loring in memory of China Loring

Flower Garden (Blumengarten) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/68296

Purchase

Fear and Hope (The Man Comforts the Woman) [Furcht und Hoffnung (Der Mann tröstet das Weib)] (plate 7) from O Eternity - Thou Word of Thunder (Bach Cantata) [O Ewigkeit - Du Donnerwort (Bachkantate)] http://www.moma.org/collection/works/117559

Gift of Mrs. Bertha M. Slattery

Christ Crowned with Thorns (Christi Dornenkrönung) (plate, folio 19 verso) from the periodical Der Bildermann, vol. 1, no. 9 (Aug 1916) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/15873