Oskar Kokoschka Overview

Oskar Kokoschka was born in Poechlarn, Bohemia. He began his course of study at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts in 1905. At that time, Vienna was not only the capital of an empire but also the center of the new Freudian school of thought. Kokoschka was expeled from the school in 1908for his Espressionist drawings and plays, which shocked the public. between 1908 and 1914, Kokoschka worked as a desiner and illustrator. He also painted a famous series of portaits, mainly of actors and writers, psychological studies illuminated by his penetrating vision. Severely wounded in battle in 1916, Kokoschka settled in Dresdenin 1917 and taught at the Academy there from 1920 to 1924, working in a Expressionistic style in which brilliant and sybolic color is more important than the figurative content of the work. He then travelled widely throughout Europe, North America and asia Minor and returned to Vienna in 1931. After his involvement in the struggle against Nazism, he fled to Prague in 1934 and in 1938 left Central Europe for London to become an English subject. He lived in Villeneuve on Lake Geneva from 1954 until his death in 1980. Kokoschka believed that " for the creative man the problem is, first to identify and define what darkens man´s intellect; secondly, to set the mind free". His paintings and drawings express the distress of the creative mind faced with the brutalities of the world.