Leopold Museum: Exhibition dedicated to the Austrian Expressionist Oskar Kokoschka

08.04.2019

270 works by the “chief wildling” shown in most comprehensive exhibition in 30 years

Oskar Kokoschka. Expressionist, Migrant, European

From 6th April 2019, the Leopold Museum presents the exhibition Oskar Kokoschka. Expressionist, Migrant, European. The cooperation project, initiated by the museum directors Christoph Becker (Kunsthaus Zürich) and Hans-Peter Wipplinger (Leopold Museum), is the first comprehensive Kokoschka retrospective shown in Vienna in around 30 years. The exhibition is among the most extensive posthumous presentations of Kokoschka’s oeuvre ever shown and features 270 objects, including 80 paintings and over 80 works on paper, numerous photographs, autographs, publications, documents, films and audio works, as well as textile objects. Thanks to 64 Austrian and international lenders from a dozen countries – among them museums, other institutions and private collections – the presentation allows visitors to experience this exceptional artist’s oeuvre through an unprecedented number of chief works. Home to 14 paintings by the artist from its own collection and from permanent loans, the Leopold Museum houses the most extensive museum collection of Kokoschka paintings in Vienna.

“Owing to the wide range of art compiled by the museum founder and collector Rudolf Leopold, the Leopold Museum houses a prized collection of paintings and works on paper by Oskar Kokoschka. Thus, it has been possible to present the retrospective, which was first shown in Zurich, in a modified manner to a public interested in art in Vienna. It features around 270 exhibits, including paintings, drawings, watercolors, lithographs and archival documents. Thanks to the readiness of numerous international lenders, including both museums and private collections, to temporarily part with their artworks, the presentation affords an impressive overview of Kokoschka’s oeuvre.”
Hans-Peter Wipplinger, Director of the Leopold Museum

The Kokoschka retrospective at the Leopold Museum is largely chronological and illustrates the most important themes of the artist’s oeuvre. A main emphasis is on the places where Kokoschka created his works – these include Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, the numerous destinations of his years of travel, Prague and his home in exile London, as well as finally the Swiss town of Villeneuve on Lake Geneva, where the artist spent the last three decades of his life from 1953.

The exhibition’s curator Heike Eipeldauer wanted to show the artist, who was once dubbed a “chief wildling” (Ludwig Hevesi), in a different light. For although Kokoschka decisively put aside the quest for harmony espoused by the Vienna Secessionists in favor of an Expressionist style, he vehemently defended the adherence to a figurative style of painting all his life.

“Kokoschka’s biography reflects the history of the 20th century, spanning his socialization in the Habsburg Monarchy, the two World Wars, all the way to the economic miracle and the gradually emerging European Community. The exhibition allows us to retrace how Kokoschka, whose unsettled life took him to various places all over Europe, took a keen interest in the political events of the 20th century and became a campaigner for a peaceful, anti-nationalist Europe. Kokoschka’s humanist stance, which he expressed in an inimitable pictorial language adhering to figuration, forms the basis for the unabated relevance of his oeuvre.”
Heike Eipeldauer, curator of the exhibition

Oskar Kokoschka’s relationship with his homeland remained ambivalent all his life. The exhibition focuses on the politically motivated output of the anti-fascist and pacifist Kokoschka, and identifies the artist through numerous documents as a rather ambivalent “homo politicus”.

“The Expressionist’s path is superbly outlined in this exhibition by the curator Heike Eipeldauer. Beginning with the artist’s early Expressionist output from 1908/09, it traces his development via the fantastic psychologizing portraits of the ‘ripper of souls’ (Albert Ehrenstein), all the way to the allegorical and mythological scenes of his late oeuvre. All throughout his career, Kokoschka encountered (cultural) political obstacles. This manifested itself in the predominantly negative reviews of his early exhibitions and plays, and the scandals caused by them, as well as in attempts made both by the corporate state before World War II and by post-war Austria to appropriate the artist for their purposes. The inglorious climax of these campaigns was the artist’s defamation through National Socialist propaganda, which made his works a prime target in the regime’s battle against what it termed ‘degenerate art’, declaring him ‘art enemy number 1’.”
Hans-Peter Wipplinger

Hundreds of works by Kokoschka were removed from museums or seized from private collections. The last part of the exhibition focuses on the post-war era and Kokoschka’s gradual reconciliation with Austria, which eventually led to the re-conferment of Austrian citizenship in 1974 on the initiative of Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky. Even after 1945, the three-time documenta participant continued to undauntedly campaign for the recognition of figurative painting – which to him was inextricably linked with a humanist and classical concept of man – making him a role model for subsequent generations of artists. His interest in the theater, the opera, in Antiquity and mythology, as well as his work permeated by humanism and his commitment to Europe, characterized his years spent in the Swiss town of Vevey on Lake Geneva, where Kokoschka lived from 1953. Kokoschka died in 1980 aged 93 in Montreux, leaving behind an essential and universal contribution to 20th century world art.

Preview and opening celebrations

During an exclusive preview for members of the Leopold Museum’s Circle of Patrons, the Kokoschka exhibition was seen already on Thursday, 4th April by the Head of the Board of Directors of the Leopold Museum Josef Ostermayer, by Agnes Husslein (Board of the Leopold Museum), the CEO of the Austrian Post Georg Pölzl (Head of CoP), Gabriele Langer (Managing Director of the Leopold Museum), Maria Kokoschka, the collectors Philipp Otto Breicha, Richard Grubman, Waltraud Leopold, Klaus Ortner and Friederike Ortner, Ernst Ploil and Peter Zimpel, the artists Martha Jungwirth, Constantin Luser, Hubert Scheibl, Walter Vopava and Kathrin Vopava, as well as the gallery owners Julius Hummel, Eberhard Kohlbacher and Alois Wienerroither. Also among the enthusiastic preview guests were Doris and Manfred Bene, Michael Brauneis, Patricia Dicker, Barbara Grötschnig (Vienna Insurance Group), attorney Andreas Nödl, Ursula Rohringer (Dorotheum), Erich Spitzbart, and many others.

The Director of the Leopold Museum Hans-Peter Wipplinger and the Kokoschka retrospective’s curator Heike Eipeldauer welcomed visitors to the official exhibition opening on Friday, 5th April. The opening speech was delivered by Wolfgang Sobotka, the president of the Austrian National Assembly. The opening was attended by the Polish ambassador Jolanta Róża Kozłowska, the Greek diplomat Catherine Koika, the Turkish ambassador Rauf Engin Soysal, Elisabeth Leopold, the director of the Kunsthaus Zürich Christoph Becker and Cathérine Hug, curator of the Zurich museum. Further in attendance were Thomas Bene, catalogue author Regine Bonnefoit, publisher Christian Brandstätter, advertiser Mariusz Jan Demner, curator Elisabeth Dutz (Albertina),  catalogue author Katharina Erling, Wolfgang Georg Fischer, Walter Feilchenfeldt (head of the Fondation Oskar Kokoschka), Elisabeth Frottier (University of Applied Arts Vienna), Dorothee Golz (artist), Brigitte Huber-Mader, Werner Hanak-Lettner (head curator of the Jewish Museum Vienna), the Klimt descendant Gustav Huber and Christa Huber, Martha Jungwirth (artist), Luisa Kasalicky (artist), Aglaja Kempf (Fondation Oskar Kokoschka), Herwig Kempinger (Secession), Josef Kirchberger (Art for Art), Eva­Maria Kokoschka, Marianne Kirstein-Jacobs, Christoph la Garde (CEO im Kinsky), Hubert Lendl (Galerie Welz), Christoph Ladstätter (Managing Director of the Volksoper), the collector Waltraud Leopold, Michael Mandlik (ARD), Elisabeth and Robert Menasse, Ines Mitterer (ORF), Therese Muxeneder (Schönberg Center), Viola and Otto Pächt, Maria Rauch-Kallat, Bernadette Reinhold (Oskar Kokoschka Center), Gerhard Rühm (artist), the gallery owners Christa Armann and Richard Ruberl, Veronika Rudorfer (Kunstforum Vienna), Markus Schinwald (artist), Hemma Schmutz (Director of the LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz), Helmut Swoboda (artist), Sofie Thorsen (artist), Patrick Werkner (catalogue author), Kathrin Zechner (ORF), Stefan Zeisler (KHM), and many others.

The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive catalogue:

Oskar Kokoschka. Expressionist, Migrant, European
Edited by the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft/Kunsthaus Zürich and the Leopold Museum Private Foundation with essays by Régine Bonnefoit, Iris Bruderer-Oswald, Martina Ciardelli, Birgit Dalbajewa, Heike Eipeldauer, Katharina Erling, Cathérine Hug, Aglaja Kempf, Alexandra Matzner, Raimund Meyer, Bernadette Reinhold, Heinz Spielmann and Patrick Werkner, as well as introductions by Christoph Becker and Hans-Peter Wipplinger, including a biography of the artist, 320 pages, some 500 illustrations.

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