Oskar Kokoschka. A Rebel from Vienna

• Dates: March 17 to September 3, 2023
• Curators: Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauer in collaboration with Fabrice Hergott and Fanny Schulmann
• Exhibition organised by the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris Musées
• Exclusive Sponsor: BBVA Foundation

 

• Kokoschka constantly reinvented himself and produced a revolutionary body of art as a political activist, champion of figurative art, and painter of souls.
• Leaving classical ideals behind, Kokoschka used the genre of portraiture as an analytical instrument capable of revealing the model’s inner self.
• In Kokoschka’s works, representations very loosely match the forms represented and everything dissolves into pure, dazzling colors.
• Kokoschka stands out for his extraordinary commitment to pacifism in his belief that “The artist must serve as a warning”.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris Musées present Oskar Kokoschka. A Rebel from Vienna, a major retrospective devoted to the Austrian artist considered one of the fathers of Viennese modernism. The exhibition is sponsored exclusively by BBVA Foundation, Strategic Trustee of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Oskar Kokoschka (b. 1886; d. 1980) garnered early success in Vienna’s art scene, where he was backed by Gustav Klimt, exerted an influence on Egon Schiele when the latter was young, and achieved international renown at the end of his career after the two world wars. By the waning days of World War II, Kokoschka was calling for a united Europe, and his late production left its mark on the Neue Wilde, the new painting in Austria and Germany. Even though he dabbled in a wide range of activities, from theater to political activism and writing, the common thread throughout his life was art. In this field, he constantly reinvented himself and produced a revolutionary body of work as a political activist, champion of figurative art, and painter of souls.