Oskar Kokoschka
Austrian, 1886–1980
In the spring of 1912, he began a two-year affair with Alma Mahler, widow of the composer Gustav Mahler and the inspiration for three double portraits by the artist. Kokoschka was seriously injured in World War I, while serving in the Austrian army. In 1917, after recovery, Kokoschka moved to Dresden, where he taught until 1924, and worked on large portrait drawings, watercolors, and paintings, as well as landscapes and biblical scenes.
From 1924 until 1931, thanks to a contract with Cassirer, he was able to travel widely throughout Europe and North Africa. In 1933 financial difficulties and health problems forced him to return to Vienna. He later moved to Prague, where he met his future wife Olda Palkovská. The two moved to England in 1939, and to Villeneuve on Lake Geneva in 1953. There Kokoschka died on 22 February 1980.
Throughout his life Kokoschka was an outspoken proponent of the avant garde as an artist, writer, and political activist. Eight of his works were shown at Hitler's Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition in Munich in 1937, and over eight hundred of his works in German public collections were confiscated by the National Socialists.
Italian, born in Greece, 1888–1978