«Driving the new motherland» Oskar Kokoschka
ARTinvestment.RU   16 июля 2008

One of the most prominent Austrian artists of the twentieth century, Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) has received extensive retrospective in Vienna

exhibition in the Albertina «Exile and the new homeland. 1934-1980 »devoted to Oskar Kokoschka in exile. Czechoslovakia, England, Switzerland ... Cosmopolitanism was reflected not only in the abundance of citizenship and residence. In 1914, he went to volunteer for the war, received a bullet in the head in Galicia, in the light fragment in the Ukraine, but survived, returning from the front to the character, which is not enough. «Art is not to decorate the apartment, - said the artist. - It is a weapon to attack and defense against the enemy». Because in the days of the Spanish War, he papered Prague posters «Help Basque children», and in 1956-m produces posters to help the Hungarian refugees.

Interestingly, on the explosive nature not likely to guess razglyadyvaya pictures and lists of graphics in the exhibition, which gathered more than 160 works. Maybe because it has a lot of cats, urban landscapes and seascapes? Maybe the case in a manner far left of the specific expressionism of his youth, and the obsession with colored pencils? Traces of youthful enthusiasm to the Van Gogh did not disappear in his predilection for broad strokes and warm tones to the last days.

At first exhibition looks like a solid holiday life. Priglyadevshis, however, notice the samples frank ernichestva. Here it is in the «Red egg» Czechoslovakia shortly after the delivery of mock the French and British, do not hurry to help European countries in their fight against fascism (the artist's father was originally from Prague, pain in the history of the family provided chronicles). Here is the image of a crab is clearly recalls slowness Churchill. Here is a lithograph of 1959, The Action Painter, where the monkey is drawing back to the easel: flaming Hi Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionists. Here is a view of Berlin with a barely visible wall midway city, but a clear political overtones. Divided city under a single, open, and the sun and the winds of heaven Kokoschka depicted July 13, 1966 by order of Axel Springer, with a panoramic point of elected shpringerovskogo a skyscraper roof.

In 1934, Kokoschka is going to Moscow to portretirovat Stalin. The project thus remained unfulfilled, as well as the desire to draw pictures of Mahatma Gandhi in the 1948-meters (shortly before the death of Indian leader). Passion for major figures in general was characterized for Kokoschka - suffice it to say that the last piece was a portrait of his then-German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

However, the political correct views, which he experienced during the second half of life, did not prevent him from hating any dictatorship. In 1968, he paints «frog». Images of fatty creatures evoked by Aristophanes comedy, first associate it with the coup «black colonels» in Greece. But soon podospel and final «Prague Spring» with Russian tanks - yet another humiliation beloved city. «Freedom - a concept-chew - he said one day - every barrier under it understands something». He saw enough of these barriers over the years of exile and the search for a new home.

Source: www.kommersant.ru