The Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) achieved world fame with his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes. In this detailed biography, Rudiger Goerner masterfully depicts the multifaceted artist's life and long career. He traces Kokoschka's path from being the bugbear of the bourgeoisie and a 'hunger artist' to becoming a wealthy and cosmopolitan political and critical artist who went on to shape the European art scene of the 20th century and beyond.
The great painter's works as a playwright, essayist and poet bear witness to his remarkable literary quality. Music played a central role in his work, and his passion for teaching led him to establish in 1953 the School of Seeing, an unconventional art school conceived by Kokoschka as an attempt to revive humanist ideals in the horrific aftermath of war. The life and work of Oskar Kokoschka are a reaction against the monochrome monotony of existence; Goerner's biography portrays the artist in all his fascinating and contradictory complexity.

Translated by: Debra Marmor, Herbert Danner