The Hunt

Oskar Kokoschka was a leader among Vienna’s avant-garde artists in the early 20th century. Though he would go to make his name as an expressionist, while a student at the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts, 1904-09), he was deeply engaged in the Jugendstil (Art nouveau) aesthetic of the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshops). The limited palette of colors, intense patterning, and fairytale sensibility of this hunting scene are all characteristic of that style. A half-century later, Kokoschka recalled that he had made this drawing and others in the hope that they would be reproduced as calendar illustrations. Though that project never came to fruition, he soon achieved success with similar drawings for postcards and book.