Expressionist Portraits Frank Whitford

When in 1909 the architect Adolf Loos offered to help the young Viennese painter Oskar Kokoschka launch his career, he devised a plan intended to earn his protege at the very least as much as he was then making from the design of postcards and other illustrated material. The plan was as optimistic as it was simple: Loos would persuade his wealthy clients and friends first to sit for Kokoschka and then to buy the portraits he painted of them. Although Kokoschka was earning very little when Loos met him, the architect's promise to improve his finances with the aid of portraiture was rash. Kokoschka had thus far produced very few portraits, none of them commissioned, and they scarcely inspired confidence in his ability to achieve a convincing likeness, let alone a belief that he might in time learn to confect the kind of image a sitter might be pleased to recognize. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Expressionist Portraits (Frank Whitford)