Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) - photo 1
Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) - photo 2
Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) - photo 3

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980)

Lot 65
10.12.2025 12:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
ID 1514547
Lot 65 | Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980)
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 5 000
Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980)
Autograph letter signed ('OK') to Ludwig Goldscheider, Villeneuve (Switzerland), 10 June 1966
In German. 2 pages, 209 x 145mm, on headed paper; envelope. Provenance: Sotheby's, 25 May 1976, lot 346 (part lot) – Stargardt, 21 March 1996, lot 677 – Albin Schram (1926-2005), his sale at: – Christie's, 3 July 2007, lot 242.

On his celebrated portrait of Kurt Adenauer. After some recommendations to Goldscheider on a visit to Vienna where in the Neumarkt some traces of the old Austria they knew can still be found, Kokoschka remarks on the reaction to his portrait of the retired German chancellor: 'Some very astute Swiss journalists, like their German colleagues, lament that Adenauer is not depicted like Lenbach's Iron Chancellor with his spiked helmet. No one notices that he has two faces: one eye seeing further than most Germans, the other that of a pragmatist who, through quick wit and resignation to a given situation, surveys the ultimate possibilities for shaping it. The Germans simply do not have anyone today who can truly capture the essence of an era, because they, like the Americans and Russians, have become too homogenised. I liked him because the backdrop, ever since the death of our old Kaiser, remains tragic for Europe, and Adenauer could not change anything. So I painted him, slightly ghostly'.

Kokoschka had won the competition to paint a portrait of the former chancellor Konrad Adenauer for the Bundestag: the sittings took place in April 1966. The portrait hung above Angela Merkel's desk in the Federal Chancellery from 2006 to 2021. Ludwig Goldscheider (1896-1973) was the founder of the Phaidon Press, initially in Vienna and then from 1938 in London.
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
10.12.2025 – 10.12.2025
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
4FQ.AYGKAGLUQ@FO3G@
Buyer Premium see on Website
Conditions of purchaseConditions of purchase

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