Pietà.
Oskar Kokoschka was a painter and a dramatist. He wrote a play that was premiered at the Internationale Kunstschau of 1909. Kokoschka’s play described the relationship between men and women as a power struggle defined by violence and desire, and its intense emotions and destructive theme caused a big controversy. Kokoschka designed this poster for the advertisement of his own play. The drawing is based on the motif of the Pietà, but the Virgin Mary holding the blood-smeared body of Christ in her arms is not a mourning woman but a woman full of beastly fury. The deliberately coarse typeface emphasizes the wild and brutal character of this poster and the play.