Hugo Erfurth

 Otto Dix, The Photographer Hugo Erfurth, 1925

Hugo Erfurth (1874-1948) was the portrait photographer par excellence of the intellectual and artistic avant-garde of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s. Many artists, including Oskar Kokoschka, Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, Marc Chagall and Paul Klee had their portraits taken in his atelier. He developed an elegiac style of portraiture. Erfurth’s work is characterized by a simple natural use of light, great psychological insight into the character of each of his subjects, and a masterful use of the technique of oil-pigment printing.

Hugo Erfurth,  Otto Dix with his painting class at the Dresden Academy, 1929

Erfurth studied art at the Academy of Arts in Dresden, Germany, from 1892 to 1896. Where he was trained in the aesthetics of Pictorialism and shaped by the compositional style of Art Nouveau. He worked as a portrait photographer in Dresden from 1896 until about 1925. From 1924 to 1948 he was chairman of the jury of the prestigious Gesellschaft Deutscher Lichtbildner (GDL). He worked in Cologne, Germany, from 1934 to 1943 and in Gaienhofen (Bodensee) from 1943 until his death in 1948. 

 Hugo Erfurth, Otto Dix and [actor] Heinrich George in front of his portrait, 1933

Otto Dix, Portrait of the Actor Heinrich George, 1932

 

Hugo Erfurth, Marc and Bella Chagall, 1923

 

 Hugo Erfurth, Oskar Kokoschka, 1920

 

Hugo Erfurth, Max Beckmann, 1928

 

 Otto Dix, Hugo Erfurth with Dog, 1926

Painting Holes

That the most important things are done through tubes. Evidence: first, the reproductive organs, the pen and our gun (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Sudelbücher, 1770)

 

 

 Troops of the Kapp-putschists on Potsdamer Platz, Berlin

During street-fighting in Dresden during the 1920 right-wing Kapp Putsch, a shot fired by defending workers damaged Rubens' painting Bathsheba.  Ignoring the casualties (35 workers were killed and 151 wounded in the fighting) Oscar Kokoschka distributed a leaflet to defend the Rubens, beseeching the workers to fight elsewhere, because "the saving of such elevating works of art was in the end much greater than any political action." 

 

Franz W. Seiwert, Klassenkampf (Class warfare), 1922. Published in the radical newspaper, Die Aktion.

The progressive artist Frans Seiwert responded immediately: "Rubens' art had long been dead. For a few hundred years we have had enormous holes in gigantic frames. Such art paralysed the will of the present generation: it weighs heavily on us and prevents us from acting". 

 Eva Švankmajerová, The making of a hole, 1987 

Eleven years later, in an 1931 article for Die Weltbühne ("The Social Psychology of Holes"), Kurt Tucholsky found a kind of dialectic solution: 

"The hole is a permanent companion of the non-hole; I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as a hole in itself. If there were something everywhere, there would be no holes, but there wouldn't be any philosophy either, not to mention religion, which is holey in origin. A mouse couldn't exist without a hole, nor could man. It is the final salvation for both when they are hard-pressed by matter. A hole is always a Good Thing."

Philippe Rousseau, The Rat Who Withdrew From The World, 1885

 George Grosz, The Painter of the Hole I, 1948

Mark Tansey, Discarding The Frame, 1980s

Oskar Kokoschka

I used to be too subjective, and I was always tempted to find my inner self in the exterior and dissipate my imagination on other people and on life. (Oskar Kokoschka)

 Oskar Kokoschka, Knight Errant (Self-Portrait), 1915

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was born Pöchlarn, Lower Austria. He studied at the "Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule" (Vienna School of Arts and Crafts)  from 1905 to 1908. Kokoschka soon became one of the most important painters of expressionist art. After the "Kunstschau 1908" (Art Show 1908), Adolf Loos became one of his promoters, and Klimt even called Kokoschka the greatest talent of the young generation. Kokoschka's book "Die träumenden Knaben", published in 1908, was dedicated to Gustav Klimt. Originally staged in Vienna in 1909, Kokoschka's Murderer, The Hope of Women is generally regarded as the first Expressionist theatre play. As an early exponent of the avant-garde expressionist movement, he began to paint psychologically penetrating portraits of Viennese physicians, architects and artists, like this one of Adolf Loos:

 Oskar Kokoschka, Portrait of Adolf Loos, 1909

In 1912 Alma Mahler (former wife of composer Gustav Mahler) met the young painter, who was known as the enfant terrible of the Viennese art scene. Kokoschka was violent and unbridled, and the press derided him as "the wildest beast of all". Their liaison led on to an unrestrained amour fou, and Kokoschka´s consuming passion was soon transformed into subjugation, his jealousy into obsession. Kokoschka´s mother rushed to her son´s assistance and wrote to Alma: "If you see Oskar again, I´ll shoot you!" One of Kokoschka´s most famous paintings, "Die Windsbraut", testifies to this anguished time:

 

Oskar Kokoschka, Die Windsbraut (The Bride of the Wind), 1914. This painting shows Kokoschka and Alma Mahler as a shipwrecked pair in stormy seas. "He satisfied my life and he destroyed it", she said.

After their separation, Kokoschka volunteered for World War I, where he received a serious bayonet injury in Russia and a head shot in Galicia. In 1916, Kokoschka served as a war painter at the Italian Isonzo front, was diagnosed as "mentally unstable", and, in 1917, left Vienna for Dresden where he had received a professorship at the Art Academy until 1924. News of Alma´s marriage to architect Walter Gropius hurt him so much that, in deepest desperation, he ordered a life-size doll from a doll-maker in Munich which should resemble Alma in every detail, because he thought the artefact would console him for the final loss of his lover. Not surprisingly, the result was disappointing: a clumsy construction of fabric and wood-wool, which Kokoschka displayed at a wild party in his atelier in Dresden, in 1919. 

 Oskar Kokoschka, Self-Portrait with Doll, 1922

Kokoschka's professorship in Dresden ended in 1924 and was followd by a seven-year period of travel in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East resulting in a number of robust, brilliantly coloured landscapes and figure pieces, painted with great freedom and exuberance. Many of them are views of harbours, mountains, and cities. Examples from this period include View of Cologne, Tower Bridge and Harbour of Marseilles:

 Oskar Kokoschka, The Harbour of Marseille, 1925

In 1931 Kokosschka returned to Vienna where he was commissioned by the Vienna City Administration to paint a Viennese motive. (He chose the view of Vienna from Wilhelminenberg). In 1934, due to the worsening political situation in Germany and Austria, Kokoschka moved to Prague where he was appointed professor at the Art Academy. His works were exhibited as "degenerate art" in the Third Reich which "motivated" Kokoschka to produce the following self-portrait:

 Oskar Kokoschka, Self-Portrait as a Degenerate Artist, 1937

In 1938, when the Czechs began to mobilize for the expected invasion of the German Wehrmacht, Kokoschka fled to England and remained there during the war. In England, he produced his famous war paintings during World War II. Kokoschka became a British citizen in 1946 and only in 1978 would regain Austrian citizenship. He traveled briefly to the United States in 1947 before settling in Switzerland, where he lived the rest of his life. Oskar Kokoschka died 1980 in Montreux.

 Oskar Kokoschka, The Red Egg, 1940

Kokoschka had much in common with his contemporary Max Beckmann. Both maintained their independence from German Expressionism, yet they are now regarded as its supreme masters, who delved deeply into the art of past masters to develop unique individual styles. Both wrote eloquently of the need to develop the art of "seeing" (Kokoschka emphasized depth perception while Beckmann was concerned with mystical insight into the invisible realm), and both were masters of innovative oil painting techniques anchored in earlier traditions.

Oskar Kokoschka, Prague, Nostalgia, 1938. This was the first painting Kokoschka completed in London, after fleeing Czechoslovakia in 1938. Painted from memory, it features the famous view of Prague with the old Charles Bridge and cathedral in the background.

You can see more works of Oskar Kokoschka here on my Flickr page.

Murderer, The Hope of Women

 Oskar Kokoschka, Murderer, The Hope of Women, 1909

How can a murderer be the hope of women - or of men, for that matter? And what have hope and murder of women to do with art? In his memoir Oskar Kokoschka, who was known more for his visual art than for his theatrical experiments, tells us that "art gives renewed hope as often as the world fails"; and insists that the answer is not in words per se but in the experience of the performance. 

 Oskar Kokoschka, Poster for "Murderer, the Hope of Women" (Vienna Summer Theatre), 1909

Originally staged in Vienna in 1909, Murderer, The Hope of Women is generally regarded as the first Expressionist play. Its obsession with sex and death is expressed in grand gestures and archaic language, while its physical risks, and its chants and screams, so vividly presaged the theories and plays of Antonin Artaud that it could almost be called a paradigm of the Theatre of Cruelty. 

 Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Der Lustmörder (The Ripper), 1917

When Kokoschka’s play was performed, it was met with considerable criticism and controversy. Its extreme visual aspects, with its dramatic and disturbing costumes and violent imagery, made it the first expressionist drama for many critics. The playwright Paul Kornfeld praised the revolutionary drama as a breakthrough art form, calling it a “verbally supported pantomime”. Similarly, drama critic Walter Sokel admired the work’s departure from traditional realism and its exploration into the surrealism underlying its biblical and mythical allusions. 

 George Grosz, John, the Lady Killer, 1918

Many interpreted the play as an effective theatrical portrayal of Otto Weininger’s idea of gender relations as a battle between man and woman. According to Weininger, Sexuality was a conflict between superior male spirituality and debased female bestiality. Otto Weininger was widely read at that time, and it might well be that he also had some influence on this early Otto Müller painting:

 Otto Müller, Standing Nude with Dagger, 1903

By the way, there is a nice song by Momus with the same title. Don't miss it.

Kokoschka's War Paintings

Oskar Kokoschka, Anschluß-Alicia in Wonderland, 1942

Deemed a degenerate by the Nazis, Kokoschka fled Austria in 1934 for Prague. In 1938, when the Czechs began to mobilize for the expected invasion of the Wehrmacht, he fled to the United Kingdom and remained there during the war. The above painting is a harsh satire against the British appeasement policy (Treaty of Munich) which facilitated Hitler's annexion (Anschluß) of Czechoslovakia.

Oskar Kokoschka, Marianne-Maquis, 1942

1942 was a year of deadlock during the Second World War. Whilst the Soviet Union was battling the Nazis in the East, there were repeated calls for British and American governments to launch a Second Front in Western Europe. In Marianne-Maquis, Kokoschka vents his criticism of the allies’ delay by showing British war leaders Winston Churchill and General Montgomery drinking tea in the Café de Paris in Soho. The central figure is Marianne, the traditional personification of France, now linked to the Maquis, the French Resistance.

Oskar Kokoschka, Loreley, 1941

The title Loreley refers to Heinrich Heine's famous poem about a mythical Rhine maiden, who lured sailors to their death. Kokoschka explained that his painting mocks British claims to maritime supremacy:

Britannia no longer rules the waves; inaction has lasted too long; an octopus swims away with a trident, the emblem of marine power. Queen Victoria, who built up the British fleet into a dominant position, rides a shark and stuffs white, brown and black sailors into its mouth. Only the frog on her hand refuses to accept the same fate: it represents Ireland, where there are no reptiles except frogs.

It is interesting to compare Kokoschka's Loreley to another shipwreck piece which - painted by Max Beckmann almost thirty years earlier - can be seen as a vision of the approaching First World War:

Max Beckmann, Sinking of the Titanic, 1912