Bezug zu Alten Meistern

It is now being presented in the Albertinum in the context of its creation. This vibrantly colourful painting fills a gap in Dresden left by the confiscation of six of Kokoschka’s paintings during the “Degenerate Art” campaign of 1937 – a loss which is still tangible in the modern art collection today.

Between 1919 and 1923, Kokoschka (1886–1980) – at that time the youngest professor at the Dresden Academy – created a few figure allegories that featured certain inventive details alluding to paintings by the Old Masters; these works were immediately sought after by museums.1 “Summer I” also contains allusions to famous precedents, such as the “Sleeping Venus” by Giorgione and Titian (around 1510), and – as the latest research has established – to Peter Paul Rubens’ “Bathsheba at the Fountain” (around 1635).