Oskar kokoschka self-portrait

Anonymous, Oskar Kokoschka à l’Ecole du regard, Salzburg, ca. 1953, © Vevey, Fondation Oskar Kokoschka

BIOGRAPHY

1886–1909
Youth and apprenticeship

Oskar Kokoschka is born on 1 March 1886 in Pöchlarn (Lower Austria) on the banks of the Danube. He is the second child of Gustav Kokoschka, a travelling salesman descended from a family of goldsmiths in Prague, and Maria Romana, née Loidl, the daughter of a forester from the Alpine foothills of Styria. Oskar’s childhood is spent in Vienna.

In 1904 he enrols in the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) in Vienna. His first oil paintings date from 1905/06. While still a student, he is commissioned by the Wiener Werkstätte to design some postcards. Employing a decorative style from which he will later distance himself, Kokoschka depicts motifs with flat areas of vibrant, contrasting colour. At the same time, he writes a number of prose poems, dramas and plays. Die träumenden Knaben (‘The Dreaming Boys’), published in 19 Oskar kokoschka paintings.