Oskar Kokoschka

Prints Available from Grafos Verlag

			In a catalogue of works from the Oskar Kokoschka Foundation, there is a photograph from 1967 of the painter standing in front of his watercolor, holding a wet, sharp-tipped Japanese paintbrush, with a box of watercolors next to him. With his left hand, he is holding the pinned wove paper, on which one of the flowers can be recognized. In this period (1960-69) he creates the late watercolors which we offer here in lithograph form. In them, the painter remains unusually contemporary. Kokoschka was driven to the end to create an artistic cycle, overtaxing himself, even when his strength was ebbing. He was attracted to the quickness of the watercolor, its contemporary spirit, it ability to condense the eye's experience. The garden before his doors helped him in his paintings.
	Blumenstrauss mit Mannstreu		There were may flowers in his garden in Villeneuve, and the painter observed his flowers with undivided attention, as neither the face of his friend Sviatoslav Richter nor the beloved image of his wife Olda escaped him at that time. Portraiture never lost its fascination for him, and his flowers also belonged somewhat in that category. One of his paintings from 1935-37 is comparable to Bonnard's Impressionist spatial colorism, at the same time glowing with expressiveness: Olda portrayed in the garden, with a flower bouquet held to her bosom. It is one of those 'private', personal paintings. Olda, at that time his wife to be, with whom he was to flee from Prague to London in 1938. Already in 1953, they had taken up permanent residence in Switzerland. In 1973 Kokoschka was still painting brilliant flower bouquets. He painted his irises and fire lilies. The biographer Hans M. Wingler writes: 'Kokoschka's temperament drew him - in intervals - again and again to the sketch-like nature of lithography. His graphic works are, both in his later as in his earlier periods, life reflections, reflections of a world view based on experience.' 'Blumenstrauss mit Mannstreu' (Bouquet with Eryngo), 1960 (CR Wingler 529) - this is a valuable piece of European art. Congenially laid down in lithograph, it was published by Grafos Verlag as an ambitious lithograph printed from 20 plates. An achievement which confirmed the perfection of his technique and effects, as if the brushstrokes had just been applied to the paper. We do not deny that these watercolors were not created by the artist with the intention of turning them into lithographs later. The catalogue raisonné, however, confirms the presence of these late original prints and does honor to the high-quality transposition onto the plate under the highly critical control of the artist.

Schwertlinienstrauss

The unconditionality with which Oskar Kokoschka laid this late watercolor, Schwertlinienstrauss (Iris Bouquet) from 1969, with all of its strikingly fragile lightness, onto chamois-colored Japan paper reveals his mastery (Kokoschka was 83 years old in 1969). And none of this is lost in this lithograph, printed in 16 colors from 14 plates for Grafos (CR Wingler, 528). It was Kokoschka's last signed print. Véronique Mauron writes: 'The watercolors of his last period intensify the characteristic features of this technique, i.e. the light. His Dresden works captivate through their color intensity and the expressive use of contrasts between complementary colors, and so those works of the 60's and 70's capture the eye for their beauty and the splendor of the color scheme. Does Kokoschka hide a secret symbol, an allegory among the leaves and flowers?' A question which shall remain open here. ek