Mädchenporträt. Um 1920/25.
Chalk drawing.
Signed lower irght. On brownish paper. 65,3 x 44,3 cm (25,7 x 17,4 in), size of sheet.

We are grateful to Mag. Dr. Alfred Weidinger, Vienna, for his expert advice. The work will be included into the 2nd volume of the forthcoming catalog raisonné.

PROVENANCE: Private collection Southern Germany.
Collection Max Fischer, Stuttgart.

In 1919 Oskar Kokoschka was appointed professor at the Dresden Art Academy. Over the following three years he was extremely productive. Besides his famous paintings with views of Dresden, Brühl's Terrace and the Neustädter Ufer, he executed many drawings, watercolors and graphic works. Many of these works are portraits, just as this drawing "Mädchenporträt“, which is everything but an idealized image of the depicted girl. Kokoschka applied this special perspective in early oil portraits from between 1909 and 1914, it is a perspective on the depicted person that does not follow outer appearance and social position. Instead the artist showed mastery to reveal the person's soul, at times in a unsettling immediacy. His early portrait paintings were often rejected by the people depicted, mostly due to their unflattering manner, today they are regarded incunables of Expressionism. [CB].