A New World View: Vienna’s Contribution to European Culture 1890–1935

There will be a full programme with outstanding speakers who will throw light on a turbulent and exciting period in European culture that had an influence we still feel today.

Stefan Zweig’s connection to Bath; music in secessionist Vienna; Freud and the genesis of psychoanalysis; the ground-breaking work of Wittgenstein; the influence of the Vienna Circle; modernist women writers on Vienna; how a new direction for architecture took root in the city all feature in a richly varied programme. 

20th of march 2021, 01:00 pm (12 noon UK)
Bernadette Reinhold:
Oskar Kokoschka. Bad Boy of Viennese Modernism
Alongside Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980) belongs to the prominent trias of Viennese Modern Art. His debut at the Kunstschau in Vienna, an exhibition celebrating the the emperor’s diamond jubilee in 1908, became a major scandal. The same is true for the premiere of his Murder, Hope of Women, one of the first expressionistic plays in literary history, in the following year. As „Oberwildling“ he received mostly scathing criticism, but gave him access to the avant-garde circles around Karl Kraus, Arnold Schönberg, and especially Adolf Loos. The latter became his mentor, and sent him to Switzerland, Berlin and Munich. Promoted by curators, art historians and dealers, O.K.’s international career as a radical young talent began. Nevertheless, he continuously felt himself to be the victim of conservative Viennese art critics throughout his entire life. He was convinced that his damnation as a „degenerated artist“ by the Nazi cultural policy, that already started in the 1920ies was rooted in his early, long lasting damnation.