Focus Scientific Research

Reception history of Oskar Kokoschka's work since 1945

Patrick Werkner. Collaboration: Gloria Sultano

Collections of the University of Applied Arts Vienna

Thanks to the support of the FWF, the Oskar Kokoschka Centre at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (UaK), which was founded in 1998, has been able to systemize its inventory, and carry out its first research project.

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was a student, and for a short time also a teacher, at the Vienna Arts and Crafts School, the predecessor institution to today’s UaK. Through many years of acquisition and collection, a department for research in to the life and work of the artist was established at the UaK, which has an unbroken documentation of the reception history.

Among the results of the research project is the book ‘Oskar Kokoschka, Art and Politics 1937-1950’ (2003) by Gloria Sultano and Patrick Werkner, which pays particular attention to the ‘political’ artist. His widow, Olda Kokoschka, honored the work of the Oskar Kokoschka Center at the UaK, by bequeathing the artist’s private library and her biographical photographic collection. The body of literature currently comprises 6,100 items. Additionally, there are 4,000 biographical photographs, which document the artist in the course of his 94 years.