The Duchess of Montesquiou-Fezensac
The Duchess of Montesquiou-Fezensac is a 1910 oil portrait by Oskar Kokoschka. In this expressionist work Kokoschka strove to capture the essence of his sitter, a young noblewoman afflicted with tuberculosis, with somber tones and stylized gestures. Among his early portraits, Kokoschka considered the work his most valuable, and as his first work to be acquired by a museum it played a key role in establishing the young artist's reputation. During the Nazi period it was confiscated from the Museum Folkwang in Essen and pilloried in the Degenerate Art exhibition before being auctioned off. It is currently in the collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum.
The son of lower-middle-class artisans, Oskar Kokoschka got his start attending the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule), where he studied under Carl Otto Czeschka and was heavily influenced by the then-dominant Art Nouveau style of the Vienna Secession.[1]
At his debut at the Vienna Kunstschau 1908, Kokoschka exhibited several provocative proto-expressionistic works, in particular The Dreaming Youths (Die Träumenden Knaben), an illustrated poem laden with sexually charged angst.[2] Gustav Klimt and other leaders of the Secession defended Kokoschka from critics, who labeled him the "chief wild man" of the Kunstschau and blamed him for its financial failure.[2][3]
Kokoschka further scandalized Viennese polite society with the 1909 debut of his play Murderer, the Hope of Women, which with its dramatic and disturbing costumes and violent sexual imagery was among the first Expressionist dramas.[2] By some accounts the debut ended in a near-riot.[2] Under pressure from above, the director of the School of Arts and Crafts Alfred Roller removed Kokoschka's stipend and expelled him from the School.[2] It was rumored that Kokoschka had drawn the ire of Archduke Franz Ferdinand himself.[4]
While Murderer cost Kokoschka his income, it also brought him to the attention of Adolf Loos, a pioneering architect who opposed what he perceived as the superficiality and ornamental excess of the Secession.[5] In Kokoschka Loos saw a potential ally in his war on ornament, and supported the younger artist by buying artwork from him and introducing him to the rest of his intellectual circle. Loos hit upon the idea of portrait painting as a way for Kokoschka to earn commissions, and encouraged his friends and acquaintances to sit for Kokoschka with the guarantee that he would buy any portrait that the sitter did not like.[5]
In late 1909 Kokoschka accompanied Loos to Switzerland to paint a portrait of Loos's girlfriend Bessie Bruce, who was being treated for tuberculosis in a sanitarium there.[6] Kokoschka ended up staying the entirety of winter 1909-10 in Switzerland, a period that was "extremely fruitful" for him.[7] Thanks to Loos's tireless promotion[8] he would end up painting at least five other portraits while there, among them The Duchess of Montesquiou-Fezensac.[9]
