Page 14 - Studio International - January 1971

Kokoschka's variety? motionless in front of the students leaning on
and
his stick. Also in my 'School of Seeing' in
early work Spotted Salzburg I tried to get my students to capture
Egg as a sort of proto-cinema. I designed little
and retain the fleeting moment.
fi o tin The colour red which I used in the Dreaming
A conversation between the p magi­ Youths is inextricably bound up with an
experience I had in my youth. Red for me is a
artist and Wolfgang Fischer These colour with powerful associations. At that
and
of time one of the art students was a Swedish
fig i col litho­ girl who for one reason or another had taken
graphs for the Dreaming Youths. Shortly before a liking to me. She used to come to see me
the first performance there was a very anxious frequently and was sitting in the corner one
The bulb in the projector suddenly day while I was drawing the dreaming youths.
p b inte heat. I found the girl very exciting. Swedish, she
They managed to repair it at the last minute, was blonde with blue eyes and wore a very
however, and my debut at the Fledermaus was red coat. I had never seen a red like that
play the before. You just didn't see that sort of colour
first time the Fl but at that time in Vienna-it wasn't a synthetic dye, but was
it was The Sphinx and the Scarecrow. made from plants. The Scandinavians of
I was very keen on popular entertainment and course have got this great tradition of dyeing
Variety. When I first went to Berlin I worked and, weaving. At any rate this was one of the
He expressionist most remarkable reds I have ever seen-this
paper Der I used to go the city colour sent me into ecstasies-like a melody­
o was like Mozart. The girl didn't need to do any­
which thing. Mostly she wore a thin scarf over her
was a sort of Variety I adored act head so that I saw almost nothing of her face­
Suns 1912 just this apparition, this lovely apparition in
The Beautiful Girl on Roller-Skates for the the red dress. I used to dream about that red.
appeared at Winter I was so much in love with the girl that I
Garden. Even before I went to Berlin, while I wanted to write her a letter, but was far too
was still at the Vienna did some shy to talk to her about it. The letter had to be
drawings of acrobats. illustrated of course. She drew so beautifully
WF Were the subjects the famous Wiener herself and was always giving me drawings,
Werkstatte Jugendstil cards chosen by you or sweet, lovely drawings. I started on the book
commissioned and showed it to the staff at the Wiener Werk­
them? statte so that they could publish it, the litho­
OK chose the subjects entirely I graphs with the text. My love-letter is called
was the prodi gy at the Wiener Werkstatte and The Dreaming Youths. But then I'm afraid a
they let me have a completely free hand. The painter friend of mine told me some terrible
W p world things about this girl. They were quite untrue
fi Youths-lonely -slander-but when you're in love you'll
i flowering believe anything, and the news astounded me,
meadows and parks. worried me and made me feel quite desperate.
WF I should be interested if you could tell me WF Does red have any other associations for
about the way you used colour in you?
Werkstatte OK No. That was my first experience of
[ TlllS CONVERSATION WITH OSCAR KOKOSCHKA, p the colour, and perhaps it was that which brought
THE MOST DISTINGUISHED LIVIN:G MEMBER OF Dreaming Youths and the early posters-the one my entire colour-sense into being. Before that
THE VIENNA SECESSION, TOOK PLACE AT you did for the 1908 Kunstschau, for example I'd only made drawings.
VILLENEUVE ON 30 JANUARY 1966.] -you composed entirely in terms flat, well­ WF And this girl was called Lili?
o c D Japanese OK Lilith, as in Biblical tradition. I called her
The famous Kunstschau exhibition at which or have anything Fraulein Li. As it happened I couldn't give
Kokoschka first showed his work was staged to do with this? her the book after all. For some reason she
in the same year that artists from the Wiener by was angry with me, probably because I
Werkstatte opened the Fledermaus cabaret Toul ce knew believed the slander; she was deeply hurt,
and decorated it in the new style (Jugendstil). Vi Mu­ and I never saw her again. She wouldn't let
What the Wiener Werkstatte artists wanted h splendid we anyone speak my name in front of her. Much
was an intimate theatre along Montmartre art students could get to know Japanese wood­ later she got married and lived for another
lines, where songs, poems, short musical c larg Museum sixty years. She didn't tell me any of this her­
items and one-act plays could be performed. It's not only the sense that self-I never dared get in touch with her
of again.
WF You not only designed the invitation card li a WF You designed some posters for Herwarth
for the Fledermaus but, according to the pro­ is was Walden's periodical; Der Sturm, as, for-instance, --
gramme of 1908, were also responsible for a p was the one for the Sturm 'art evening' in 191 7 with
play called The Spotted Egg. How did this teacp. used the portrait of Rudolf Bliimner. Did Walden
association with the Fledermaus come about, groups playing children models instead tell you what he wanted the posters to look
and how important a source of inspiration for stiff old sit like in any way?

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