Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980)
Five autograph letters and two autograph postcards signed ('Oskar', 'OK') to János Plesch, London, Wigtownshire, Minneapolis and Villeneuve, [7 November 1941] - 26 January 1957 and n.d.
In German. Together approx. 12 pages, various sizes; with a portrait postcard of himself with Olda signed by both on verso, Venice, 1948; and one note and three postcards by Olda Kokoschka, one of the postcards also signed by Oskar; and a carbon copy signed ('Oskar Kokoschka') of an essay in English, 'Disarmament of Babes', London, July 1940, 10 pages. Provenance: Sotheby's, 26 & 27 November 1980, lot 197.

Anti-Semitism, international education, a successful exhibition and Rembrandt. A letter written on the stroke of the new year during wartime sends good wishes and hopes that the coming year will 'shorten for us all the time of the diaspora, and make the meschuggenen Goim become raisonable again'; and Kokoschka speculates on the role of education in wars and anti-Semitism ('Every nation blamed the Jews for everything'): this is also the theme of his wartime essay, present in a signed typescript. A letter from Minneapolis in September 1949 rejoices in the success of his exhibition at MOMA in New York, 'the finest exhibition I have ever had and almost a vindication for my 40-year long existence'. Writing from London in June the following year he mentions 'my job at Count Seilern's, for whom I am painting a 28-foot long and 5-foot wide ceiling painting', and encourages Plesch to finish his book on Rembrandt, urging him particularly to look at the prints and drawings.

Classified as a 'degenerate artist' by the Nazis, Kokoschka had left Austria for Prague in 1934, before in 1938 being forced to flee to the United Kingdom, where he remained during the War, much of it in Cornwall, although he and his wife Olda spent a few weeks each summer at the house of the Emil Korner in Wigtownshire. From 1953 he settled in Villeneuve, Switzerland.