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Lot Essay
Oskar Kokoschka became infatuated with the model for these drawings, Lilith Lang, to the disapproval of some of her progressive but nevertheless respectable family- her father was a lawyer, and her mother a prominent women’s rights activist. His interest in her quickly developed into an obsession.
Recognising Kokoschka’s talent, the Principal of the Wiener Werkstätte (The Vienna Workshop) commissioned from him an illustrated children’s story. By this time Kokoschka, aged 21, had met the 16‑year‑old Lilith at the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) in Vienna. He promptly substituted the commission with his own more subversive illustrated narrative poem Die träumenden Knaben (The Dreaming Boys; the print portfolio is also present in the Hegewisch Collection), which he dedicated to Klimt and for which the present drawings were probably preparatory studies. The verse tells the story of a young boy and a girl named Li who live in an Edenic forest full of plants, exotic birds and other animals. The boy’s rite-of-passage visions and erotic dreams constitute a barely disguised pean from the artist to Lilith. He would later describe the book as his first love letter.
The Wiener Werkstätte was a pioneering centre of artistic ideas and Kokoschka would find a new distinctive voice there as his art transitioned away from decorative Jugendstil towards Expressionism. These studies pinpoint a key moment of stylistic evolution as they prefigure elements of the final colour lithographs in the published book.
The present work shows the elegant figure of Lilith seen from behind and again in profile as she reaches her arms behind her back. On the reverse, the same figure sits with eyes closed, one leg tucked under the other, leaning on an outstretched hand. Viewed from slightly above, this perspective over-emphasises the size of her head in relation to her body. Kokoschka uses continuous lines to render the body’s lineaments. The face is depicted as fresh, delicate, and alluring - glossy long hair trails down her back and her lips are full and slightly parted; her eyes, wide and heavily lidded. These features contrast starkly with her thin body. The contortion of each pose, coupled with the economy of line, seen for example in the jutting shoulder blade of the first figure, demonstrates Kokoschka’s mastery of anatomical draughtsmanship and heighten a sense of the artist’s empathy for the subject’s unguardedness.
Although deliberately exaggerated, there is an unflinching honesty to these studies which steadfastly renounce flattery and privilege instead a physical but non-literal ‘truth’. This is fairy tale laid bare; the nudity is indicative of an otherworldly arcadianism as much as eroticism. Kokoschka’s expressionistic distortion of form would influence key artists including his near contemporary, Egon Schiele.
Recognising Kokoschka’s talent, the Principal of the Wiener Werkstätte (The Vienna Workshop) commissioned from him an illustrated children’s story. By this time Kokoschka, aged 21, had met the 16‑year‑old Lilith at the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) in Vienna. He promptly substituted the commission with his own more subversive illustrated narrative poem Die träumenden Knaben (The Dreaming Boys; the print portfolio is also present in the Hegewisch Collection), which he dedicated to Klimt and for which the present drawings were probably preparatory studies. The verse tells the story of a young boy and a girl named Li who live in an Edenic forest full of plants, exotic birds and other animals. The boy’s rite-of-passage visions and erotic dreams constitute a barely disguised pean from the artist to Lilith. He would later describe the book as his first love letter.
The Wiener Werkstätte was a pioneering centre of artistic ideas and Kokoschka would find a new distinctive voice there as his art transitioned away from decorative Jugendstil towards Expressionism. These studies pinpoint a key moment of stylistic evolution as they prefigure elements of the final colour lithographs in the published book.
The present work shows the elegant figure of Lilith seen from behind and again in profile as she reaches her arms behind her back. On the reverse, the same figure sits with eyes closed, one leg tucked under the other, leaning on an outstretched hand. Viewed from slightly above, this perspective over-emphasises the size of her head in relation to her body. Kokoschka uses continuous lines to render the body’s lineaments. The face is depicted as fresh, delicate, and alluring - glossy long hair trails down her back and her lips are full and slightly parted; her eyes, wide and heavily lidded. These features contrast starkly with her thin body. The contortion of each pose, coupled with the economy of line, seen for example in the jutting shoulder blade of the first figure, demonstrates Kokoschka’s mastery of anatomical draughtsmanship and heighten a sense of the artist’s empathy for the subject’s unguardedness.
Although deliberately exaggerated, there is an unflinching honesty to these studies which steadfastly renounce flattery and privilege instead a physical but non-literal ‘truth’. This is fairy tale laid bare; the nudity is indicative of an otherworldly arcadianism as much as eroticism. Kokoschka’s expressionistic distortion of form would influence key artists including his near contemporary, Egon Schiele.