Oskar Kokoschka - Autograph Oskar Kokoschka - 1920

Reproductive photography. Signed. Blue ink on the photograph. Matting. Framed. Museum glass.

The portrait of Oskar Kokoschka, created by the photographer Hugo Erfurth around 1919/1920, is regarded as one of the most important photographic portraits of the Weimar Republic. It was produced in Dresden, where Kokoschka was working at the time as a professor at the Academy of Arts.

Erfurth often used the oil pigment print (or gum print) for this work, a technique that gives photography a painterly, almost graphic quality and fits perfectly with Kokoschka’s expressionist style.

Key details about the work:

Artist: Hugo Erfurth (1874–1948), a pioneer of artistic portrait photography.

Subject: Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980), Austrian painter and a forerunner of Expressionism.

Approximate date: Around 1919 or 1920 in Dresden.

Technique and historical context: Often executed as a sepia-toned fine art print or oil pigment print.

Locations: Prints are today housed in significant collections such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York or the Oskar Kokoschka Center in Vienna.