SALZBURG.- The prints of Oskar Kokoschka (Pöchlarn, AT, 1886―Montreux, CH, 1980) occupy a prominent position in his output. He first explored the technique while studying art in turn-of-the-century Vienna; over the years, and especially in the final decades of his long life, he built a sizable graphic oeuvre. The Museum der Moderne Salzburg possesses an exceptionally comprehensive collection of Kokoschka’s prints and has repeatedly mounted presentations of selections from this treasure since it was established. Oskar Kokoschka. The Printed Oeuvre in the Context of Its Time is the first major exhibition entirely focused on Kokoschka’s lithographs and etchings. Divided into eight chapters, it showcases ca. 210 pieces to trace an arc from his controversial early work across the portraits of his Dresden years to his late oeuvre, which speaks to his admiration for Greek art and culture, and embeds the various groups of works—all shown as complete sets—in their historical contexts. Kokoschka was an attentive observer of current affairs, and some of the works on display show him engaging critically with the political developments of his time. “The exhibition sheds light on the creative development and evolving views of an artist who was a keen-eyed witness to the history of the twentieth century. Rebelling against the art nouveau aesthetic that dominated in turn-of-the-century Vienna, Kokoschka devised an expressive visual idiom that reflects the apprehensiveness and inner turmoil of the period,” Barbara Herzog, curator of the show, explains.

The presentation opens with Kokoschka’s works for the Wiener Werkstätte, created while he was still a student at the Kunstgewerbeschule. He also tried his hand at writing; among his juvenilia is the drama Murderer, Hope of Women, whose premiere in 1909 caused a scandal. Many of the works in which he translated his stormy affair with Alma Mahler into art reflect the anxiety that men in turn-of-the-century Vienna felt in the face of the nascent women’s movement. After the separation from Alma, Kokoschka volunteered for military service. Shocked by what he witnessed and wounded in battle, he became a pacifist. When the National Socialists seized power and vilified his art as “degenerate,” he escaped to England. After the war, he did not return to Austria, choosing to settle in Switzerland instead. In lithographic cycles on themes from classical mythology, the late Kokoschka paid tribute to the legacy of antiquity, which, he believed, was a vital source of ethical as much as aesthetic guidance. Serving as artistic director of the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts—the “school of seeing” that he and Friedrich Welz cofounded in 1953—for over a decade, he earned a place of honor in the annals of art in Salzburg.

Curator: Barbara Herzog, curator