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Lot Essay
Painted in London during the Second World War, Kathleen Countess of Drogheda is one of Kokoschka's finest later portraits. Executed in a loose highly Expressionistic style using radiant and often garish colour, the portrait betrays the same masterly intuitive touch that distinguishes the artist's earliest psychological portraits made in Vienna nearly forty years before.
Kokoschka's sitter for this portrait was the Countess of Drogheda, born Kathleen Moore Pelham Burn who had married the Earl of Drogheda in 1909 and divorced him in 1922 to marry Guillemo Delanda a polo player. A sportswoman herself, who had played tennis at Wimbledon, learnt to fly and worked helping refugees during the 'First War', she was by all accounts an indomitable woman of fortitude. Kokoschka, who by the time he began to paint her in 1944 was able to choose his sitters painting in the main only people he liked and had become friends with, took several years to complete this painting which remained in a state of incompletion throughout the war. A photograph of its earlier state was recorded by Edith Hoffmann in her 1946 book on the artist.
As Frank Whitford has also pointed out in his biography of Kokoschka, the painting almost did not survive the war. While Kokoschka was working on the portrait in his Park Lane studio a doodle-bug 'exploded in Hyde Park on the other side of the road. Kokoshka and (the Countess) were lucky to escape with their lives ...all the windows in the house were shattered by the blast except for those in the studio. In view of this dramatic event (which entirely failed to disturb the composure of the Countess) it is surprising that the completed painting was at all successful. In fact it is one of the best of Kokoschka's later portraits.' (Frank Whitford, Oskar Kokoschka, A Life London, 1986, p. 182)
Kokoschka's sitter for this portrait was the Countess of Drogheda, born Kathleen Moore Pelham Burn who had married the Earl of Drogheda in 1909 and divorced him in 1922 to marry Guillemo Delanda a polo player. A sportswoman herself, who had played tennis at Wimbledon, learnt to fly and worked helping refugees during the 'First War', she was by all accounts an indomitable woman of fortitude. Kokoschka, who by the time he began to paint her in 1944 was able to choose his sitters painting in the main only people he liked and had become friends with, took several years to complete this painting which remained in a state of incompletion throughout the war. A photograph of its earlier state was recorded by Edith Hoffmann in her 1946 book on the artist.
As Frank Whitford has also pointed out in his biography of Kokoschka, the painting almost did not survive the war. While Kokoschka was working on the portrait in his Park Lane studio a doodle-bug 'exploded in Hyde Park on the other side of the road. Kokoshka and (the Countess) were lucky to escape with their lives ...all the windows in the house were shattered by the blast except for those in the studio. In view of this dramatic event (which entirely failed to disturb the composure of the Countess) it is surprising that the completed painting was at all successful. In fact it is one of the best of Kokoschka's later portraits.' (Frank Whitford, Oskar Kokoschka, A Life London, 1986, p. 182)