Oskar Kokoschka Letters 1905-1976 - hardcover

Oskar Kokoschka was a prolific letter-writer for much of his long life, which spanned both World Wars and saw sweeping changes in art and society. This volume contains letters addressed to Alma Mahler during their passionate love affair between 1912 and 1915, and to other women in his life. In the years before World War I, his correspondents included the composer Arnold Schoenberg, the writer Karl Kraus, and the architect Adolf Loos. Later, cavalry training and active service on the Russian front in 1915 are graphically described, as are the artist's extensive travels in Europe and North Africa in the late 1920s. In the 1930s Kokoschka's works were denounced by the Nazis and exhibited as examples of "degenerate art". In 1938 he sought refuge in England, where he corresponded with Augustus John, Sir Kenneth Clark, Herbert Read, Joseph Needham and other distinguished contemporaries. After the war, he was associated with leading figures in the arts and public life, such as the conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler and Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. This selection of his letters is supplemented by explanatory notes and brief biographies of the recipients.