Oskar Kokoschka

The Bride of the Wind — Viennese Expressionism

One of the leading Austrian Expressionists, a painter and playwright whose feverish, psychologically penetrating portraits scandalized fin-de-siecle Vienna. Kokoschka sought to paint the inner life beneath the face, and his tempestuous self-portraits and his great allegory of his doomed love for Alma Mahler, The Bride of the Wind, are landmarks of Expressionist art. Branded 'degenerate' by the Nazis, he fled to England and continued painting turbulent cityscapes into old age.

Key works

• The Bride of the Wind (Die Windsbraut)1914— His and Alma Mahler's love as a storm-tossed embrace
  Kunstmuseum Basel
• Self-Portrait as a Degenerate Artist1937— His defiant answer to Nazi condemnation
  Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Connections

External