Adolf Loos

• Page from the Portfolio Menschenköpfe [Human Heads]
• Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980)
• 1916
• Publisher: Der Sturm, Berlin
• Lithograph on paper
• Leopold Museum, Vienna

This is a portrait of Adolf Loos, a forerunner of Viennese Modernist architecture, by Oskar Kokoschka. Loos highly appreciated young Kokoschka’s candid and unaffected way of self-expression and originality which set him apart from social conventions. Loos became Kokoschka’s most important mentor and introduced him to his circle of cultural figures, from whom the artist received new commissions. In 1908, Loos declared ornamentation a “crime” in his book and promoted functionalism that avoided all decorative elements in pursuit of simple and straightforward design.

* Menschenköpfe (Human Heads) is a portfolio published by Herwarth Walden’s publishing company, Der Sturm, in 1916. It contains fifteen lithograph portraits of Vienna’s important cultural figures who were closely associated with Oskar Kokoschka.