„You Have Been Lost for the Home Country“: Kokoschka and Austrian Cultural Policy After 1945

Kokoschka’s relationship to his home country (Heimat) Austria was highly ambivalent ever since his scandalous exhibition debut in Vienna 1908. He was exposed to hostile criticism and ignorance from art critics and the official institutions. Not until 1937 was his first retrospective exhibition realized in Vienna, in which Kokoschka (then living in Prague) was hailed as lost son in austrofascist diction. Simultaneously, his works were removed from German museums and shown in the exhibition Degenerate Art in Munich.

After World War II, Kokoschka was not involved in any of Vienna’s prestigious reconstruction projects. His desire to become a professor at one of the Viennese art academies remained unfulfilled. Therefore, his engagement in the intellectual and cultural reconstruction was limited to the Austrian provinces (e.g. School of Seeing, Salzburg, 1953-63). Indicative of the special cultural-political situation was that protagonists of recent National Socialist art dealing (e.g. Friedrich Welz, Wolfgang Gurlitt) became his partners there. Nevertheless, Kokoschka was exhibited (and misappropriated) as an exponent of Austrian modern art at representative federal exhibitions during the interwar period and after 1945. His declarations against non-representational art and his conservative turn in the late 1940s were also answered in Austria with poignant responses. By evaluating the complex relationship between Kokoschka and Austria from the viewpoints the artist held across several countries, a case study is developed for the study of European cultural politics, for which the 2013 CES conference offers a constructive site for discussion.