Keith Holz, Associate Professor of the Western Illinois University in Macomb, examines in his lecture held on 12 June 2013 at 3.30 p.m. in the Institute of Art History, Husova 4, Prague 1, room 117, newly available letters by and about Oskar Kokoschka from Moscow and Zürich archives. This lecture revises extant interpretations of his art and activities in Czechoslovakia (1934–1938). Kokoschka's public role as an outspoken advocate for human rights, his pursuit of democracy through educational reform (the Volkshochschule movement), and his role as a critic of fascist governments are related to his less understood, but elaborate, network of supporters, friends and family within and beyond the borders of the Republic.
How Kokoschka exploited these relationships to both advance his public career and satisfy his
personal desires and needs during this difficult and transitional period is elaborated. Kokoschka's
public / private nexus is examined in relation to his key ’manifesto’ paintings of these years,
namely: Portrait of T. G. Masaryk (1936), Self-Portrait of a ’Degenerate’ Artist (1937–1938), and
the large overlooked canvas The Fountain (1938). Considering his public image and private life
together, a more adequate reckoning emerges to answer the question of how Czechoslovakia and
Kokoschka's time there altered his self-conception and practice of being a modern artist, while
also raising questions of what modernism had become by the 1930s in the West.
An art historian, Keith Holz's research is on the art of twentieth century Germany (ca.
1900-1945). He has published extensively on German exile artists and their artists' associations in
Prague, Paris, and London during the 1930s. His book "Modern German Art for Thirties Paris, Prague
and London: Resistance and Acquiescence in a Democratic Public Sphere", Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, was published in 2004.
Keith Holz came to WIU in 2003. He has taught courses on Contemporary Art, Modern Art, History
of Photography, History of Modern Design, American Art, German Art 1900-1945, as well as General
Education courses (i.e.: Art History Survey, Introduction to Art, and Introduction to Visual
Culture). He has also led seminars on Holocaust Representation in Contemporary Art and Visual
Culture, Women and Modern Art, and Art and Visual Culture in Nazi Germany.
4 Jun 2013
