Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980)

Details
Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980)

Porträt Camille Swoboda

signed lower left O Kokoschka, soft pencil on cream paper
27½ x 19 5/8in. (70 x 50cm.)

Drawn in the Summer of 1920
Provenance
Michelangelo Muraro, Venice, by whom bought directly from the artist and given to Prof. Giuseppe Fiocco, Padua (the grandfather of the present owner)

Lot Essay

The present work depicts Camilla Swoboda, the young wife of Karl Swoboda, Max Dvorák's assistant at the Kunsthistorische Institut of Vienna University. In all, Kokoschka drew some twenty studies of Camilla. Hans Wingler notes: "Während Karl Maria Swoboda ... in seiner Wohnung Klavier spielte, hielt Kokoschka auf einer grösseren Anzahl von Zeichnungen den Reflex des musikalisch - seelischen Erlebnisses in Physiognomie und Gebärde von Camilla Swoboda, der Ehefrau des Musizierenden, fest". (Kokoschka, Das drückgraphische Werk, Salzburg, 1975, p. 129.)

He was so delighted by these portraits that he used an offset lithograph of the present drawing for a series of lithographs entitled Das Konzert published in 1921.

Madame Olda Kokoschka has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work.

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