After two world wars, Kokoschka felt the urge to convey his humanist ideas. Classical culture became an important reference in his late paintings and writings. In a time when abstraction was growing and society was becoming increasingly technologized, the representation of Greek myths where the human figure prevailed was Kokoschka’s attempt at educating society. He regarded the Greeks as the paradigm of society and the individual. Throughout his life he collected many objects from Antiquity.

“I differed from the authors of Communist propaganda since I didn’t arm myself with a certain ideology to address a mass; I simply addressed the human conscience. I was some kind of one-man underground movement.” Oskar Kokoschka

Press presentation on the occasion of an exhibition in the Haus der Kunst in Munich, June 1958
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