Dream Vision

Prints and Drawings

1908/09

Oskar Kokoschka
Austrian, 1886–1980

Kokoschka worked in the style of the Viennese Art Noveau, or Jugendstil (Youth Style), in which artists sought to disassociate with so-called high art and focus on decorative arts, printmaking, and the book arts. Kokoschka illustrated several books: shown here is a scene from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, the story of a shipwrecked sailor stranded on a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean. Although the book was intended for adults, Kokoschka’s illustration resembles one from a children’s book, with its thick black lines and bold colors. The crowded, shallow space in the composition reflects the anxiety Crusoe feels, as he is trapped in the strange, dreamlike world of the island.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Oskar Kokoschka
Title: Dream Vision
Place: Austria (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1908–1909
Medium: Pen and black ink, with watercolor and red gouache, over graphite, on tan wove paper
Inscriptions: Inscribed recto, lower right, in brush and black ink: "OK"; upper center on mount, in graphite (inverted): "277 334 w / IV"; verso, lower left, in graphite: "D. Künstler"; lower center, in graphite: "Chiner [?] Alle 31 / 5 /…/ moza" [?]
Dimensions: 22.8 × 17.9 cm (9 × 7 1/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 2013.964
Copyright: © 2018 Fondation Oskar Kokoschka / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ProLitteris, Zurich

Ivan Fenjö, Oskar Kokoschka–Die frühe Graphik, (Vienna, 1976), p. 29, fig. 13 (color ill.).
Werner J. Schweiger, Der junge Kokoschka: Leben und Werk 1904-1914 (Vienna, 1983), p. 95 (color ill.).
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. 177, cat. 128 (ill.).

Vienna, Oberes Belvedere, “Oskar Kokoschka zum 85. Geburtstag,” 1971, cat. 111.
Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, “Oskar Kokoschka, Das Frühwerk (1897/98–1917), Zeichnungen und Aquarelle,” 1994, cat. 76 (color 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. 177, cat. 128 (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.

Unknown collector, Vienna [illegible partial stamp (ZO…T [ZOLLAMT] / WIEN / 5; not in Lugt) verso, upper left, in black]. Private collection, Vienna; sold, Sotheby’s, London, June 28, 1995, lot 150, to Dorothy Braude Edinburg, Brookline, MA; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.

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