Kokoschka as a slave. A famous painting from a Czech collection goes to auction for almost a quarter of a billion

The Prague auction house Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery will offer a unique oil painting by the Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka called Woman and Slave. The auction will start at an astronomical 242 million crowns by Czech standards (including the auction surcharge).

The painting Frau mit dem Sklaven (Woman and Slave) dates from 1920, from the so-called Dresden period of the famous Austrian painter. It is a portrait of Kokoschka’s former lover and model Alma Mahler as a slave owner and Kokoschka himself in the role of a slave.

But to understand the motive, let’s go back in time a few years. It is January 1915, and the First World War is raging in Europe. Kokoschka has just sold his painting The Wind Bride, which he originally painted for his beloved Alma, after which she floated into the arms of another man. Kokoschka therefore decided to voluntarily join the elite dragoon regiment. He bought a uniform and a horse with the money from the sale of the painting.

Already in August of the same year, he was shot in the head during the fighting on the Eastern Front. Severely injured, he was treated in Sweden. Here he received the crushing news – Alma, who was seven years older than him, was expecting a child with him, but she voluntarily underwent an abortion. The painter, declared unfit for further military service, takes advantage of an offer to teach at the Dresden Academy. And it was here that Kokoschka and Alma artistically “reconciled” the painting The Woman and the Slave.

Painting is traditionally created using a brush or a painter’s spatula. Here, however, Kokoschka applied thick layers of oil paint with his fingers. Already two years after its completion, the large painting (92.5 × 109.5 cm) was exhibited at the Venice Biennale. The importance of the work is underlined by the fact that it had a separate hall at the international exhibition.

“It is the crowning work of Kokoschko’s dramatic expressionism and belongs to his most important paintings ever. Undoubtedly, it would be a decoration of every state or private collection in the world,” says gallery owner Vladimír Lekeš from the auction house Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery for Seznam Zprávy, adding: “We would like to approach not only Czech, but also important foreign galleries, museums and private collectors.”

In 2020, it was his gallery that sold a painting by painter Toyen called The Queen of Spades. For a record 78.65 million crowns at the time, the work went to the collections of the Qatari royal family – that is, to the National Museum of Qatar.

From 1929, the painting Woman and Slave was owned by the important Dresden collector Fritz Salo Glaser. Because of his Jewish origin, however, he had to sell it in 1942 at a low price and above all under pressure. Since 1945, a private collector from Prague has been listed with the work, and it is said that it was safely hidden in the attic of the owner’s house until the coup in 1989. In the 1990s, the painting was also bought by a prominent Czech collector.

Years ago, however, the heirs of Fritz Salo Glaser came forward with a restitution claim. By agreement between them and the current owner, selling the painting is a way to satisfy this claim. The auction house Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery, which was commissioned to mediate the sale, was given priority over important foreign auction houses such as Sotheby’s or Christie’s.

“A painting by Oskar Kokoschka of comparable quality has only been auctioned once in the last thirty years, and that was in 2018. It was a portrait of Count Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac, and it was auctioned in the United States for 465 million crowns in the then conversion rate. No other similar Kokoschk painting of this importance has yet appeared at auction. Until now,” explains gallerist Vladimír Lekeš.

Although Kokoschk’s painting is the most interesting item in the upcoming auction, it is not the only one. 52 selected works of art of modern and contemporary art will be auctioned in the Expo 58 exhibition hall on Prague’s Letná. The sum of all starting prices reaches 365 million crowns.

Among foreign authors, the offer includes a rare neoplastic composition by Jean Gorin. From the Czechs, the famous portrait of Bohumil Kubišta, the still life of Emil Filla or the canvas of Josef Šíma. The paintings will be open to the public at a pre-auction exhibition in the Expo 58 building from February 18 – March 19, 2023.