It seems that Kokoschka's art training was unconventional for its time, lacking in instruction regarding oil painting. Which might be a small part of the reason his paintings are such messes.
This post is in my "In the Beginning" or "Artists' early work" series, and shown below are some Kokoschka paintings made before he was 30. By that point they are not very different from paintings he made later in life.
Loos was an early modernist architect who famously criticized ornamentation.
A founder of the Vienna Secession and step-father of Alma Mahler.
Information on her and her parade of men can be found here.
Painted after the end of Kokoschka's affair with Alma who was seven years older. The Wikipedia account above states that he never really got over the relationship, though he later married.
I actually enjoyed his single and double portraits very much. It was when he moved onto complex religious scenes and landscapes that the wheels fell off.
ReplyDelete