Portrait of Niuta Kallin

Prints and Drawings

c. 1922

Oskar Kokoschka
Austrian, 1886–1980

The daughter of a Russian merchant, Niuta Kallin had an intimate relationship with Kokoschka and lived on and off with the artist between 1921 and 1925. The inscription below her left arm, which translates to “With passionate heart, your human arrow,” was often used by Kokoschka in his letters to Kallin. Malina (raspberry) was Kokoschka’s pet name for her and appears at the top left of the drawing. While the artist had written of her “stern and beautiful” eyes in a letter to her, this rendering captures the uncertainty brought on by their long distance relationship.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Oskar Kokoschka
Title: Portrait of Niuta Kallin
Place: Austria (Artist's nationality)
Date: Made 1917–1927
Medium: Black crayon on tan wove paper, laid down on wood pulp board
Inscriptions: Inscribed recto, upper left, in blue crayon: "Malina"; lower right, in black crayon: "Coeur fièvreux / ta fleche humaine"
Dimensions: 66.3 × 49.7 cm (26 1/8 × 19 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 2013.962
Copyright: © 2018 Fondation Oskar Kokoschka / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ProLitteris, Zurich

Suzanne Folds McCullagh (ed.), Drawings in Dialogue: Old Master Through Modern, The Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2006), p. 181, cat. 132 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, “Drawings in Dialogue: Old Master Through Modern, The Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection,” June 3–July 30, 2006, p. 181, cat. 132 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, “The Thrill of the Chase: Drawings for the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection,” Mar. 15-June 15, 2014, no cat.

Given by the artist to Niuta Kallin; given to her sister-in-law, Grit Kallin Fischer and Edward Fischer, 1947; by descent to a private collection; sold, Sotheby’s, New York, Feb. 25, 1992, lot 28, to Dorothy Braude Edinburg, Brookline, MA; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.

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