View of the Thames from the Strand Hotel

Oskar Kokoschka

1954

Colored chalk on cream paper

Minneapolis Institute of Art

The radical Austrian Expressionist and political activist Oskar Kokoschka became a British citizen after World War II and his art went in a new direction. He traveled widely in his later years, and the subjects of his drawings reflect his extensive travels, as seen here in his view of the River Thames in London, seen from the Strand Hotel. His far flung journeys are further recorded by the dedications he frequently inscribed on these late drawings, as Kokoschka gifted many of them to friends he made across the world. This sketch was given, and dedicated, to the late Rosalynd Pflaum, and her husband Leo, whom the artist first met in