Oskar Kokoschka   1886 - 1980 

Kokoschka was born in near Vienna, in 1886. Leaving school aged 19 he obtained a scholarship at a specialist arts and crafts school where he first began to learn draughtsmanship, completed his first oils around 1907, and put on his own first one-man exhibition in 1908. Mocked by his contemporaries, in later years these early paintings were praised for the hardship and dismay reflected in his subjects' society.

Moving to Dresden after the war he left the country in 1924, travelling for the next ten years through Europe and the Middle East. Kokoschka moved to Prague in 1934 but was forced by Nazi occupation to flee to England, eventually settling in Switzerland. He died in Montreux in 1980. His work is held internationally and he is regarded as one of the finest masters of German Expressionism.

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